Harold Titus's Blog, page 9
August 8, 2021
Bad Apples --- Angelo Quinto-- December 26, 2020
A 30-year-old Northern California man undergoing a mental health episode died days after police officers kneeled on the back of his neck for nearly five minutes to subdue him, lawyers for his family said.
Angelo Quinto had been "suffering from anxiety, depression, and paranoia for the previous few months," his family's attorneys said in a wrongful death claim, filed on February 18 [2021].
His sister Isabella Collins called police to their Antioch, California, home on December 23 [2020] because she feared he would hurt their mother, family lawyer John L. Burris said during a February 18 press conference.
Before police arrived, Quinto's mother had been holding him to her chest with her hands clasped around his back for a few minutes, and "he had already started to calm down," the claim stated. When two officers from the Antioch Police Department arrived, Burris said they made no attempt to understand the situation and instead, immediately grabbed Quinto from his mother's arms.
Quinto lost consciousness and was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead three days later, family attorneys say in the claim.
… Quinto's mother used her cell phone to record part of the incident.
"What happened?," she says breathlessly as Quinto is seen not moving and laying on his front. Officers roll him over to carry his body out, and his face is bloody. He is moved to a gurney and paramedics administer chest compressions on Quinto as his mother records on her phone, asking questions (Chan and Asmelash 1).
"He said 'Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me,' as they were putting him on the ground.
They handcuffed him and one officer put his knee on the back of his neck the whole time I was in the room," said Quinto's mother, Cassandra Quinto-Collins.
Quinto-Collins said she had been hugging her son and he was calm when officers arrived at their home in Antioch, 45 miles east of San Francisco.
"I trusted the police because I thought they knew what they were doing but he was actually passive and visibly not dangerous or a threat so, it was absolutely unnecessary what they did to him," she said.
A video recorded by Quinto-Collins shows her son listless, with a bloodied face and his hands cuffed behind his back. She said she began recording after seeing her son's eyes were rolled up in his head.
The family filed a legal claim against the Antioch Police Department last week, which gives the department 45 days to respond.
After that time has elapsed, the family will file a federal lawsuit, said John Burris, the Quintos' attorney (Navy 1).
Video recorded by Quinto-Collins — posted online by the family’s lawyer and presented at a press conference last week by the attorney — appears to show the incident.
…
Officers and paramedics appear in the video to lift Quinto out of the room onto a gurney where paramedics performed chest compressions. Quinto did not seem to be conscious or responsive in the video.
He was later taken to a hospital where he “never regained consciousness” and died three days later, the lawsuit says (Madani 1-2).
[Here is the mother’s video of the officers’ removal of Angelo’s unconscious body. Paste the following on Google]
VIDEO: Angelo Quinto lies bleeding on floor after incident with ...
The officers asked Quinto-Collins to step aside so they could put handcuffs on him.
Quinto-Collins said that moments later, she watched as an officer pinned her son’s neck with a knee for nearly five minutes while another officer restrained his legs — a description that closely mirrors the police killing of George Floyd, whose death sparked nationwide protests for racial justice last summer.
However, the Antioch Police Department says the officer applied his knee for only a few seconds “across a portion of Angelo’s shoulder blade.”
“At no point did any officer use a knee or other body parts to gain leverage or apply pressure to Angelo’s head, neck, or throat, which is outside of our policy and training,” Antioch Police Chief Tammany Brooks said during Tuesday’s news conference, adding that the investigation is still ongoing.
Although Quinto-Collins did not capture the alleged knee-pinning part of the encounter, the video begins when officers realized Quinto was unresponsive, prompting them to remove his handcuffs. ...
Police didn’t disclose Quinto’s death until nearly a month after the incident, when the Mercury News began reporting the story in January. Quinto’s family filed a wrongful death claim— a precursor to a formal lawsuit — against the city in February, alleging that the use of police force ultimately led to his death.
“I should not, nor should anyone else, ever have to regret calling the police when they are supposed to be the people that help you,” Isabella Collins, Quinto’s sister, told NBC Bay Area (Ramirez 1).
John Burris, the Quintos' attorney, said along with claims of a knee restraint, there were other issues with the officers' response, including how they didn't try to de-escalate and first talk to Quinto, and how they failed to turn on their body cameras and the camera in their patrol car (Police 1).
Quinto, who was born in the Philippines, was honorably discharged from the Navy in 2019 because of a food allergy, said his sister, Bella Collins.
He suffered from depression most of his life, but his behavior changed after an apparent assault in early 2020, when he woke up in a hospital not remembering what had happened and with stitches and serious injuries. After that, he began having episodes of paranoia and anxiety, she said.
Collins, 18, said she now regrets calling the police after worrying her brother, who before police arrived was tightly hugging her and their mom, could hurt their mother.
"I asked the detectives if there was another number I should have called, and they told me that there wasn't and that I did the right thing. But right now I can tell you that the right thing would not have killed my brother," she said (Rodriguez 1).
Quinto’s death also comes as anti-Asian sentiment and attacks are on the rise.
According to Stop AAPI Hate, an organization that tracks reports of anti-Asian violence, roughly 3,000 verbal and physical attacks against Asian Americans have occurred since last spring. More recently, a Filipino man’s face was slashed as he rode the subway in New York; an elderly Thai man was aggressively shoved to the ground in San Francisco, which resulted in his death; and a Chinese woman was pushed against a newsstand outside a New York City bakery.
Recent protests have called attention not only to the uptick in anti-Asian violence but also the harmful stereotypes and sentiments woven into America’s fiber. On one hand, Asians are seen as “forever foreigners” who are “dirty” and eat “smelly” foods; on the other, they are “model minorities” who have risen above discrimination to become successful engineers and doctors, living “the American dream.” None of which shows the reality and nuance of the roughly 40 ethnic groups that make up the “Asian American” category, or the 12 percent who live in poverty, or the South and Southeast Asians who are often darker-skinned and suffer the most from anti-Asian sentiment.
For now, activists will continue to protest, and Quinto’s family will continue to fight through legal action. “The road to justice is not easy but we will continue to fight for justice for Angelo and justice for all,” Quinto’s family said Wednesday in an Instagram post. “We have no doubt that the truth will prevail” (Ramirez 5).
Without a doubt, Quinto’s physical appearance as a man of color affected the police officers’ decision to use a deadly restraining method though he was not resisting. By not acknowledging Quinto’s identity as an Asian American who was born in the Philippines, one is erasing a critical aspect of who he was, how he lived, and how he died.
This racial erasure is not new. Asian Americans are often left out of the racial discourse that operates on a white-Black binary. I [Pearl Lo] understand this because whites see Blackness as the antithesis of their whiteness and corresponding superiority.
White supremacy thrives primarily off of Black dehumanization. You cannot talk about race without discussing whiteness and Blackness, nor should you.
However, Asian Americans need to be cemented in their identity as people of color, because we cannot continue to be bystanders to hate against us or our Black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) peers. We have to insert ourselves into the racial dialogue– not to make it all about Asians, but to use our identities to fight with our BIPOC siblings against racism. We cannot afford to be apathetic to this violence and erasure. Be angry that Angelo Quinto was murdered. Be angry that his Asianness was not deemed newsworthy. And be angry that this happens to Black folk unceasingly.
First, Asia, like many other parts of the world, has a long history of white colonialism. Asians in a global context have been harmed tremendously by white supremacy for centuries. There is also a long and painful history of anti-Asian racism and discrimination in the United States that is intentionally forgotten. Ignoring this history contributes to the erasure of who we are as Asians and Asian Americans.
Second, it is important to keep in mind how diverse the Asian, Pacific Island, and Desi American (APIDA) community truly is. Asian America is much more than the stereotypical doctor of East Asian descent that you see on TV. While Angelo Quinto might not look like your “typical” Asian American, he is certainly a part of our APIDA community. It is necessary to acknowledge our unique customs, languages, and cultures even when we unite as a collective Asian America.
Third, it is essential to check your own biases and admit when you have been wrong, especially on issues of race. Doing so allows you to move forward more aware and informed of how pervasive racism is and how you can work to dismantle this system. It is certainly not easy to admit on a national outlet that I have made racial assumptions about a Filipino American man and contributed to the erasure of an essential identity. But I do so in the hope that you will also confront your biases and consistently strive to educate and better yourself (Lo 1-2).
… only a week later, a second man, 33-year-old Arturo Gomez Calel, died during an apparent crisis when Antioch police deployed a Taser during a struggle in the street.
The two incidents have raised questions about transparency, accountability and the role of law enforcement in a city that has seen rapid demographic changes and resisted police reforms until just recently.
The deaths have also highlighted a larger push for cities to adopt non-police response units to respond to people in crisis.
"It was clear that we needed to have a different environment that our police department was operating under," said Mayor Lamar Thorpe, who was elected in November after running on a platform of police reform.
Those reform efforts are now being closely watched following the deaths of Quinto and Calel. Prior to his election, a then white-majority city council rejected efforts to bring even basic reforms to the department.
For decades Antioch was a predominantly white, working-class community on the outskirts of the Bay Area along the Delta. But as home prices have increased and populations have shifted, Antioch has begun to look a lot more like the rest of the Bay Area.
According to the last census, more than a third of the city is Latino and more than 20% is Black – more than double what it was in 2000.
"It was clear that the leadership was so out of touch and their values were just inconsistent with where the community was at large," Thorpe said in a recent interview with KTVU.
The council recently made good on plans to equip officers with body-worn cameras – something most Bay Area agencies have had for years.
The city is now developing an independent police oversight commission. It’s also exploring alternative non-police options for some mental health calls.
"Law enforcement -- in most situations where the person is unarmed -- needs to be taken out of the response," said Gigi Crowder, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Contra Costa County.
She lives in Antioch and has been working to train officers in how to respond to crisis calls.
But in most cases, she said they shouldn’t even be showing up in the first place.
"When someone is unarmed and not a danger, it could be handled with a social worker. It could be handled with a peer," she said (Sernoffsky 1).
Works cited:
Chan, Stella and Asmelash, Leah. “Man Dies after Police Kneel on His Neck for Nearly 5 Minutes, Family Says in Wrongful Death Claim.” CNN, updated February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/23/us/ang...
Lo, Pearl. “Where Is the Outrage over Angelo Quinto’s Murder?” Diverse, March 8, 2021. Net. https://diverseeducation.com/article/...
Madani, Doha. California Navy Vet Died after Police Knelt on Neck amid Mental Health Crisis, Family Says.” NBC News, February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...
“Navy Veteran Died after Police Knelt on His Neck for Nearly 5 Minutes, Family Says.” CBS News, February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/angelo-q...
“Police Say No Illegal Knee-on-Neck Chokeholds Used on Angelo Quinto after Family Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit.” 11ABC, March 3, 2021. Net. https://abc11.com/angelo-quinto-wrong...
Ramirez, Rachel. “Angelo Quinto’s Family Says He Died after Police Pinned Him by His Neck. Police Deny They Did Anything Wrong.” Vox, March 3, 2021. Net. https://www.vox.com/2021/3/3/22311360...
Rodriguez, Olga R. “Family: Navy Vet Died after Police Knelt on His Neck.” KATU2, February 24, 2021. Net. https://katu.com/news/nation-world/fa...
Sernoffsky, Evan. “Two Recent In-Custody Deaths Put Spotlight on Antioch Police as City Pushes Reforms.” KTVU, March 29, 2021. Net. https://www.ktvu.com/news/two-recent-...
Angelo Quinto had been "suffering from anxiety, depression, and paranoia for the previous few months," his family's attorneys said in a wrongful death claim, filed on February 18 [2021].
His sister Isabella Collins called police to their Antioch, California, home on December 23 [2020] because she feared he would hurt their mother, family lawyer John L. Burris said during a February 18 press conference.
Before police arrived, Quinto's mother had been holding him to her chest with her hands clasped around his back for a few minutes, and "he had already started to calm down," the claim stated. When two officers from the Antioch Police Department arrived, Burris said they made no attempt to understand the situation and instead, immediately grabbed Quinto from his mother's arms.
Quinto lost consciousness and was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead three days later, family attorneys say in the claim.
… Quinto's mother used her cell phone to record part of the incident.
"What happened?," she says breathlessly as Quinto is seen not moving and laying on his front. Officers roll him over to carry his body out, and his face is bloody. He is moved to a gurney and paramedics administer chest compressions on Quinto as his mother records on her phone, asking questions (Chan and Asmelash 1).
"He said 'Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me,' as they were putting him on the ground.
They handcuffed him and one officer put his knee on the back of his neck the whole time I was in the room," said Quinto's mother, Cassandra Quinto-Collins.
Quinto-Collins said she had been hugging her son and he was calm when officers arrived at their home in Antioch, 45 miles east of San Francisco.
"I trusted the police because I thought they knew what they were doing but he was actually passive and visibly not dangerous or a threat so, it was absolutely unnecessary what they did to him," she said.
A video recorded by Quinto-Collins shows her son listless, with a bloodied face and his hands cuffed behind his back. She said she began recording after seeing her son's eyes were rolled up in his head.
The family filed a legal claim against the Antioch Police Department last week, which gives the department 45 days to respond.
After that time has elapsed, the family will file a federal lawsuit, said John Burris, the Quintos' attorney (Navy 1).
Video recorded by Quinto-Collins — posted online by the family’s lawyer and presented at a press conference last week by the attorney — appears to show the incident.
…
Officers and paramedics appear in the video to lift Quinto out of the room onto a gurney where paramedics performed chest compressions. Quinto did not seem to be conscious or responsive in the video.
He was later taken to a hospital where he “never regained consciousness” and died three days later, the lawsuit says (Madani 1-2).
[Here is the mother’s video of the officers’ removal of Angelo’s unconscious body. Paste the following on Google]
VIDEO: Angelo Quinto lies bleeding on floor after incident with ...
The officers asked Quinto-Collins to step aside so they could put handcuffs on him.
Quinto-Collins said that moments later, she watched as an officer pinned her son’s neck with a knee for nearly five minutes while another officer restrained his legs — a description that closely mirrors the police killing of George Floyd, whose death sparked nationwide protests for racial justice last summer.
However, the Antioch Police Department says the officer applied his knee for only a few seconds “across a portion of Angelo’s shoulder blade.”
“At no point did any officer use a knee or other body parts to gain leverage or apply pressure to Angelo’s head, neck, or throat, which is outside of our policy and training,” Antioch Police Chief Tammany Brooks said during Tuesday’s news conference, adding that the investigation is still ongoing.
Although Quinto-Collins did not capture the alleged knee-pinning part of the encounter, the video begins when officers realized Quinto was unresponsive, prompting them to remove his handcuffs. ...
Police didn’t disclose Quinto’s death until nearly a month after the incident, when the Mercury News began reporting the story in January. Quinto’s family filed a wrongful death claim— a precursor to a formal lawsuit — against the city in February, alleging that the use of police force ultimately led to his death.
“I should not, nor should anyone else, ever have to regret calling the police when they are supposed to be the people that help you,” Isabella Collins, Quinto’s sister, told NBC Bay Area (Ramirez 1).
John Burris, the Quintos' attorney, said along with claims of a knee restraint, there were other issues with the officers' response, including how they didn't try to de-escalate and first talk to Quinto, and how they failed to turn on their body cameras and the camera in their patrol car (Police 1).
Quinto, who was born in the Philippines, was honorably discharged from the Navy in 2019 because of a food allergy, said his sister, Bella Collins.
He suffered from depression most of his life, but his behavior changed after an apparent assault in early 2020, when he woke up in a hospital not remembering what had happened and with stitches and serious injuries. After that, he began having episodes of paranoia and anxiety, she said.
Collins, 18, said she now regrets calling the police after worrying her brother, who before police arrived was tightly hugging her and their mom, could hurt their mother.
"I asked the detectives if there was another number I should have called, and they told me that there wasn't and that I did the right thing. But right now I can tell you that the right thing would not have killed my brother," she said (Rodriguez 1).
Quinto’s death also comes as anti-Asian sentiment and attacks are on the rise.
According to Stop AAPI Hate, an organization that tracks reports of anti-Asian violence, roughly 3,000 verbal and physical attacks against Asian Americans have occurred since last spring. More recently, a Filipino man’s face was slashed as he rode the subway in New York; an elderly Thai man was aggressively shoved to the ground in San Francisco, which resulted in his death; and a Chinese woman was pushed against a newsstand outside a New York City bakery.
Recent protests have called attention not only to the uptick in anti-Asian violence but also the harmful stereotypes and sentiments woven into America’s fiber. On one hand, Asians are seen as “forever foreigners” who are “dirty” and eat “smelly” foods; on the other, they are “model minorities” who have risen above discrimination to become successful engineers and doctors, living “the American dream.” None of which shows the reality and nuance of the roughly 40 ethnic groups that make up the “Asian American” category, or the 12 percent who live in poverty, or the South and Southeast Asians who are often darker-skinned and suffer the most from anti-Asian sentiment.
For now, activists will continue to protest, and Quinto’s family will continue to fight through legal action. “The road to justice is not easy but we will continue to fight for justice for Angelo and justice for all,” Quinto’s family said Wednesday in an Instagram post. “We have no doubt that the truth will prevail” (Ramirez 5).
Without a doubt, Quinto’s physical appearance as a man of color affected the police officers’ decision to use a deadly restraining method though he was not resisting. By not acknowledging Quinto’s identity as an Asian American who was born in the Philippines, one is erasing a critical aspect of who he was, how he lived, and how he died.
This racial erasure is not new. Asian Americans are often left out of the racial discourse that operates on a white-Black binary. I [Pearl Lo] understand this because whites see Blackness as the antithesis of their whiteness and corresponding superiority.
White supremacy thrives primarily off of Black dehumanization. You cannot talk about race without discussing whiteness and Blackness, nor should you.
However, Asian Americans need to be cemented in their identity as people of color, because we cannot continue to be bystanders to hate against us or our Black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) peers. We have to insert ourselves into the racial dialogue– not to make it all about Asians, but to use our identities to fight with our BIPOC siblings against racism. We cannot afford to be apathetic to this violence and erasure. Be angry that Angelo Quinto was murdered. Be angry that his Asianness was not deemed newsworthy. And be angry that this happens to Black folk unceasingly.
First, Asia, like many other parts of the world, has a long history of white colonialism. Asians in a global context have been harmed tremendously by white supremacy for centuries. There is also a long and painful history of anti-Asian racism and discrimination in the United States that is intentionally forgotten. Ignoring this history contributes to the erasure of who we are as Asians and Asian Americans.
Second, it is important to keep in mind how diverse the Asian, Pacific Island, and Desi American (APIDA) community truly is. Asian America is much more than the stereotypical doctor of East Asian descent that you see on TV. While Angelo Quinto might not look like your “typical” Asian American, he is certainly a part of our APIDA community. It is necessary to acknowledge our unique customs, languages, and cultures even when we unite as a collective Asian America.
Third, it is essential to check your own biases and admit when you have been wrong, especially on issues of race. Doing so allows you to move forward more aware and informed of how pervasive racism is and how you can work to dismantle this system. It is certainly not easy to admit on a national outlet that I have made racial assumptions about a Filipino American man and contributed to the erasure of an essential identity. But I do so in the hope that you will also confront your biases and consistently strive to educate and better yourself (Lo 1-2).
… only a week later, a second man, 33-year-old Arturo Gomez Calel, died during an apparent crisis when Antioch police deployed a Taser during a struggle in the street.
The two incidents have raised questions about transparency, accountability and the role of law enforcement in a city that has seen rapid demographic changes and resisted police reforms until just recently.
The deaths have also highlighted a larger push for cities to adopt non-police response units to respond to people in crisis.
"It was clear that we needed to have a different environment that our police department was operating under," said Mayor Lamar Thorpe, who was elected in November after running on a platform of police reform.
Those reform efforts are now being closely watched following the deaths of Quinto and Calel. Prior to his election, a then white-majority city council rejected efforts to bring even basic reforms to the department.
For decades Antioch was a predominantly white, working-class community on the outskirts of the Bay Area along the Delta. But as home prices have increased and populations have shifted, Antioch has begun to look a lot more like the rest of the Bay Area.
According to the last census, more than a third of the city is Latino and more than 20% is Black – more than double what it was in 2000.
"It was clear that the leadership was so out of touch and their values were just inconsistent with where the community was at large," Thorpe said in a recent interview with KTVU.
The council recently made good on plans to equip officers with body-worn cameras – something most Bay Area agencies have had for years.
The city is now developing an independent police oversight commission. It’s also exploring alternative non-police options for some mental health calls.
"Law enforcement -- in most situations where the person is unarmed -- needs to be taken out of the response," said Gigi Crowder, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Contra Costa County.
She lives in Antioch and has been working to train officers in how to respond to crisis calls.
But in most cases, she said they shouldn’t even be showing up in the first place.
"When someone is unarmed and not a danger, it could be handled with a social worker. It could be handled with a peer," she said (Sernoffsky 1).
Works cited:
Chan, Stella and Asmelash, Leah. “Man Dies after Police Kneel on His Neck for Nearly 5 Minutes, Family Says in Wrongful Death Claim.” CNN, updated February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/23/us/ang...
Lo, Pearl. “Where Is the Outrage over Angelo Quinto’s Murder?” Diverse, March 8, 2021. Net. https://diverseeducation.com/article/...
Madani, Doha. California Navy Vet Died after Police Knelt on Neck amid Mental Health Crisis, Family Says.” NBC News, February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...
“Navy Veteran Died after Police Knelt on His Neck for Nearly 5 Minutes, Family Says.” CBS News, February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/angelo-q...
“Police Say No Illegal Knee-on-Neck Chokeholds Used on Angelo Quinto after Family Files Wrongful Death Lawsuit.” 11ABC, March 3, 2021. Net. https://abc11.com/angelo-quinto-wrong...
Ramirez, Rachel. “Angelo Quinto’s Family Says He Died after Police Pinned Him by His Neck. Police Deny They Did Anything Wrong.” Vox, March 3, 2021. Net. https://www.vox.com/2021/3/3/22311360...
Rodriguez, Olga R. “Family: Navy Vet Died after Police Knelt on His Neck.” KATU2, February 24, 2021. Net. https://katu.com/news/nation-world/fa...
Sernoffsky, Evan. “Two Recent In-Custody Deaths Put Spotlight on Antioch Police as City Pushes Reforms.” KTVU, March 29, 2021. Net. https://www.ktvu.com/news/two-recent-...
August 5, 2021
Bad Apples -- Andre Hill-- 12--22-2020
A police officer fatally shot a Black man early Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio, three weeks after a county sheriff’s deputy killed a Black man in the state capital, which ignited a round of protests against police brutality.
“Our community is exhausted,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said during a news conference.
Mr. Ginther said the fact that the officer did not activate his body camera until after Tuesday’s shooting “disturbs me greatly,” particularly with the city still reeling from the Dec. 4 death of Casey Goodson Jr., which was not captured on video.
On Wednesday, the Columbus Department of Public Safety identified the victim as Andre Maurice Hill, 47. The officer, Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran, was relieved of duty and forced to turn in his badge and gun.
Though Officer Coy did not have his body camera turned on during the shooting, a violation of department policy, the department’s body cameras are equipped with a feature that starts recording 60 seconds before they are turned on.
When the officer did turn on his camera, the playback feature captured the shooting. The footage did not capture audio until after the shooting, so any verbal exchange before the gunfire was not recorded.
The video, released on Wednesday, showed two police officers responding to a call from someone concerned about an S.U.V. parked in a residential area. On a recording of the call, which was also made public, a man told a police dispatcher that the vehicle had been there for about 30 minutes, and that the car had been running for much of that time.
Officer Coy’s body camera footage shows that he approached a garage with another officer, shining flashlights inside. As they did, Mr. Hill, who appeared to be holding a cellphone in one hand, walked slowly toward them.
Within seconds, Oficer Coy pulled his gun and opened fire. Mr. Hill fell to the ground.
Then the audio recording started. Officer Coy, still pointing his gun, ordered Mr. Hill to put his hands to his side and roll onto his stomach. “Don’t move, dude,” Officer Coy said as he patted down a groaning Mr. Hill. “Roll over, dude.”
It is unclear exactly how long it took police officers to provide first aid to Mr. Hill, but officers can first be seen on the video attending to him about six minutes after he was shot. Mr. Hill died at a hospital shortly after.
No weapon was recovered at the scene.
“This is a tragedy on many levels,” Chief Thomas Quinlan of the Columbus Division of Police said in a statement. “We promise that we will provide as much transparency as possible on our part, both with investigators and the public.”
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the inquiry in the case (Wright “Columbus” 1-2).
In the parking lot of Brentnell Community Recreation Center where Andre' Hill played basketball, learned to play chess and simply hung out with friends, more than 100 people gathered decades later to share stories and demand police reforms.
Corey McDonald went to Hocking Technical College with Hill and remembered Hill on Saturday evening as passionate and skilled in the culinary arts.
"If he tasted it. If he smelled it. He could make it," said McDonald, of Hill, who was shot by Columbus Police Officer Adam Coy three days before Christmas during a non-emergency service call while visiting a friend at a home in the 100 block of Oberlin Drive on the Northwest Side.
"He was smart. He was a good guy," McDonald said. "He was a good friend."
"You get him in a dark room with a fork and some salt and pepper and a match, he's gonna make something good," McDonald added.
Hill, 47, known to friends and family as Big Daddy, also was passionate about people, active in Black Lives Matter causes and was wearing a BLM shirt early Tuesday morning when he was confronted by Coy and a female officer, who has not been publicly named, in the entrance of the open garage of the home.
Shawna Barnett recalled her older brother as a talker, who would entertain, but also educate.
"He would talk to anyone. He spoke to everyone, welcomed everyone and treated everyone the same."
"He was always one to give a helping hand with no excuses, no questions. You could always count on Andre."
"He would never hurt anyone. So for them to pull out (a gun) and kill my brother for no reason is unacceptable," Barnett said, pausing to compose herself. "He wasn't even given an opportunity to even finish a sentence before the cop shot him."
She assailed the police for denying Hill aid for more than five minutes while they attended to Coy, who was coughing, and offering him water.
"We are here because, even though it's Christmas, unfortunately police brutality and implicit bias don't even take a break for Christmas," said Benjamin Crump, who, along with two local attorneys, is representing Hill's family, whom he said "were expecting Big Daddy to bust through the door on Christmas morning, like he had always done."
…
Crump said that Hill's family had heard extended video in which Coy asks a colleague: "I need to figure out what the (expletive) am I going to say," to which the other officer replies: "I got you."
That statement is not shown in the video released by police after the shooting. Columbus Public Safety spokesman Glenn McEntyre said there is no other police version of the exchange (Narciso 1).
Newly released documents from Columbus police on Tuesday show officer Adam Coy, who was fired after he fatally shot Andre Hill, an unarmed Black man, had at least a nine-year history of reacting inappropriately in stressful situations.
The internal affairs and complaint records for Coy were released as part of a request under the Ohio Public Records Act. Coy's personnel file showed 90 citizen complaints filed against Coy in his 19 years with the division.
…
According to the documents released Tuesday, supervisors within the Columbus Division of Police were aware of Coy's errors in judgment as early as 2011.
A man filed a complaint against Coy following an arrest in February of that year. The records state the man was stopped after police received a call about a firearm being shown from a vehicle and then fired. The man also did not comply with police orders when he was stopped, the records state.
After an internal investigation, Coy received documented constructive counseling for swearing at the man "in an offensive manner" and not using the microphone for his cruiser video camera system. Columbus police did not have body cameras at the time.
Coy said the battery for the microphone had died and was charging in his cruiser at the time of the stop.
Coy and another officer were also given documented constructive counseling for driving irresponsibly and outside of policy.
Coy was recorded as going 83 mph in a 35 mph zone while responding to the call.
The man had also alleged he was struck by an officer, whom he did not identify. That allegation was not sustained because there was no evidence to prove or disprove it.
An investigator with the police division's internal affairs wrote in a report that there was "the sound of banging" captured on video, but no video captured the incident itself. Coy said the noise was him placing the man against the cruiser after the man had pushed himself off of it. Other officers who responded said they did not see any force.
In August 2012, Coy was also given documented constructive counseling after responding to a domestic dispute, according to internal affairs documents. Coy called the woman a "hood rat" and smoked a cigarette while waiting for a supervisor, the records state. Smoking while on duty is against division policy.
Two months later, Coy was again under internal investigation after stopping a suspected impaired driver in the Ohio State University campus area around 3:30 a.m. Oct. 16, 2012.
A person who lived in the area filed a complaint with police about what they believed to be excessive force on Coy's part during the traffic stop. Dash camera video showed Coy striking the suspected drunk driver's head four times against the hood of a police cruiser.
The investigation resulted in Coy being internally charged and having a hearing before then-Chief Kim Jacobs. During the hearing, Jacobs told Coy he had "too many complaints not to record everything" and that the division had to be concerned about "somebody from the outside looking into this type of behavior."
"You can't act out of fear and you can't act out of anger," Jacobs said. "We need you to act without having the tension there."
Coy said he had struck the suspect's head against the cruiser when the suspect "tensed up" while Coy was handcuffing him.
"I saw minor actions and movements ... in an inflated manner due to my lack of focus," Coy said.
After interviewing Coy, reviewing the dash camera video and interviewing witnesses, an internal affairs investigator wrote in her report that the driver was "at no time ... actively resisting."
"There is nothing to indicate that (level of) response was required," the investigator wrote. "The additional head strikes to the hood of the cruiser were not necessary and were excessive for the situation."
During the hearing, Coy said he had proactively sought out a stress management class, had reached out to an employee assistance program offered by the city and signed up for a use-of-force course offered by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy.
Coy again showed signs of lack of control and not using de-escalation techniques in 2018, according to records.
Coy had been helping with traffic in the area of the Ohio State Fairgrounds in August 2018 when he was flagged down about a large fight in the area. When Coy responded, according to the documents provided, he used profanity to keep members of the crowd out of the road and used mace against one person who was not complying with his orders.
The use of mace was determined to be within division policy.
Coy was also disciplined for using the term "hoodlum" when talking to one person in the crowd. His use of the term was captured on Coy's body camera.
Coy was given documented constructive counseling for "gratuitous" use of profanity at the scene that "only served to antagonize," a commander wrote (Bruner 1-3).
A Columbus police officer who was fired after fatally shooting a Black man in December was arrested and charged with felony murder on Wednesday [February 2021], Attorney General Dave Yost of Ohio announced.
The officer, Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran who is white, was also charged with felonious assault and two counts of dereliction of duty.
Mr. Coy shot Andre Hill four times after responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle. When he and another officer arrived at the scene, Mr. Coy found Mr. Hill in a garage and opened fire within seconds.
Mr. Yost said his office acted as a special prosecutor in the case, reviewing evidence, interviewing witnesses and presenting charges to a grand jury, which indicted Mr. Coy on Wednesday.
“The vast virtue of law enforcement is diminished by the very few bad actors among its ranks, and only by holding a bad actor accountable can that virtue be sustained,” Mr. Yost said at a news conference. “Here’s what I mean in plain English: same rules for everybody.”
…
Mr. Coy’s lawyer, Mark Collins, said that he had expected an indictment because of “the low threshold of probable cause,” but that the specific charges were surprising. He said the evidence would show that Mr. Coy was justified in his use of force and that the former officer believed that Mr. Hill was holding a silver revolver in one hand.
“Police officers have to make these split-second decisions, and they can be mistaken,” said Mr. Collins, who said Mr. Hill was actually holding a keychain. “If they are mistaken, as long as there’s an honest belief and that mistake is reasonable, the action is justified” (Wright “Former” 1-2).
In January, [the mayor] Mr. Ginther demoted the former Columbus police chief, Thomas Quinlan, who he said had lost the public’s trust after failing to “successfully implement the reform and change I expect and that the community demands,” according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The City Council also unanimously passed Andre’s Law, named after Mr. Hill, which mandates the use of body cameras by city police during any action by law enforcement, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The law also requires officers to give aid and call for medics if they use any force that causes injuries.
…
At the news conference, Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the family, thanked the city’s leadership for settling the case so quickly and for establishing the new precedent “that we will value all life equally” (Wright “Columbus” 3).
The city of Columbus, Ohio, has agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Andre Hill, a 47-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a Columbus police officer in December.
It is the largest such settlement in the city's history, and the largest pretrial settlement in a police use-of-force case in state history, lawyers said.
"It's one step toward something. It doesn't help or doesn't take the scar off of our hearts that we still have from my dad not being here," said Hill's daughter Karissa Hill at a press conference after the settlement was announced. "But it's something, and it's a start."
…
… What do we want the example to be for our children?" said civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who has represented Hill's family, along with many others of those killed by police. "When you see wrong, then your obligation is to do right."
The department fired Coy on December 28 for failing to turn on his body camera and for not providing medical aid.
He has since been charged with murder and felonious assault. He was arrested in February [2021] and was released on a $1 million bond. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Coy has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Two federal investigations, one by the FBI and one by the U.S. attorney for central Ohio, are also underway.
"No amount of money will ever bring Andre Hill back to his family, but we believe this is an important and necessary step in the right direction," said Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein in a statement.
In addition to the $10 million payment, the settlement requires the city to rename a municipal gym after Hill by the end of 2021.
Hill's daughter Karissa held her own daughter as she spoke to reporters later.
"My daughter's three," she said. "She might not understand it now, but when she's older, she will definitely understand the legacy that her Big Daddy left behind for her" (Sullivan 1).
[You may watch a “Good Morning America” (GMA) produced video of this shooting incident by pasting the following on Google]
Police body camera footage show new details in Andre Hill ...
Works cited:
Bruner, Bethany. “New Documents Show Ex-Columbus Officer Adam Coy Had History of Inappropriate Reactions.” The Columbus Dispatch, January 12, 2021. Net. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/l...
Narciso, Dean. “Family, Friends and Strangers Support Andre' Hill, Demand Police Reforms.” The Columbus Dispatch, updated December 28, 2020. Net. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/c...
Sullivan, Becky. “City of Columbus To Pay $10 Million in Settlement with Family of Andre Hill.” NPR, May 14, 2021. Net. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/14/996979...
Wright, Will. “Columbus Police Kill Black Man Weeks after Protests against Brutality.” The New York Times, updated May 14, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us...
Wright, Will. “Former Columbus Police Officer Is Charged with Murder.” The New York Times, February 3, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/us...
“Our community is exhausted,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said during a news conference.
Mr. Ginther said the fact that the officer did not activate his body camera until after Tuesday’s shooting “disturbs me greatly,” particularly with the city still reeling from the Dec. 4 death of Casey Goodson Jr., which was not captured on video.
On Wednesday, the Columbus Department of Public Safety identified the victim as Andre Maurice Hill, 47. The officer, Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran, was relieved of duty and forced to turn in his badge and gun.
Though Officer Coy did not have his body camera turned on during the shooting, a violation of department policy, the department’s body cameras are equipped with a feature that starts recording 60 seconds before they are turned on.
When the officer did turn on his camera, the playback feature captured the shooting. The footage did not capture audio until after the shooting, so any verbal exchange before the gunfire was not recorded.
The video, released on Wednesday, showed two police officers responding to a call from someone concerned about an S.U.V. parked in a residential area. On a recording of the call, which was also made public, a man told a police dispatcher that the vehicle had been there for about 30 minutes, and that the car had been running for much of that time.
Officer Coy’s body camera footage shows that he approached a garage with another officer, shining flashlights inside. As they did, Mr. Hill, who appeared to be holding a cellphone in one hand, walked slowly toward them.
Within seconds, Oficer Coy pulled his gun and opened fire. Mr. Hill fell to the ground.
Then the audio recording started. Officer Coy, still pointing his gun, ordered Mr. Hill to put his hands to his side and roll onto his stomach. “Don’t move, dude,” Officer Coy said as he patted down a groaning Mr. Hill. “Roll over, dude.”
It is unclear exactly how long it took police officers to provide first aid to Mr. Hill, but officers can first be seen on the video attending to him about six minutes after he was shot. Mr. Hill died at a hospital shortly after.
No weapon was recovered at the scene.
“This is a tragedy on many levels,” Chief Thomas Quinlan of the Columbus Division of Police said in a statement. “We promise that we will provide as much transparency as possible on our part, both with investigators and the public.”
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the inquiry in the case (Wright “Columbus” 1-2).
In the parking lot of Brentnell Community Recreation Center where Andre' Hill played basketball, learned to play chess and simply hung out with friends, more than 100 people gathered decades later to share stories and demand police reforms.
Corey McDonald went to Hocking Technical College with Hill and remembered Hill on Saturday evening as passionate and skilled in the culinary arts.
"If he tasted it. If he smelled it. He could make it," said McDonald, of Hill, who was shot by Columbus Police Officer Adam Coy three days before Christmas during a non-emergency service call while visiting a friend at a home in the 100 block of Oberlin Drive on the Northwest Side.
"He was smart. He was a good guy," McDonald said. "He was a good friend."
"You get him in a dark room with a fork and some salt and pepper and a match, he's gonna make something good," McDonald added.
Hill, 47, known to friends and family as Big Daddy, also was passionate about people, active in Black Lives Matter causes and was wearing a BLM shirt early Tuesday morning when he was confronted by Coy and a female officer, who has not been publicly named, in the entrance of the open garage of the home.
Shawna Barnett recalled her older brother as a talker, who would entertain, but also educate.
"He would talk to anyone. He spoke to everyone, welcomed everyone and treated everyone the same."
"He was always one to give a helping hand with no excuses, no questions. You could always count on Andre."
"He would never hurt anyone. So for them to pull out (a gun) and kill my brother for no reason is unacceptable," Barnett said, pausing to compose herself. "He wasn't even given an opportunity to even finish a sentence before the cop shot him."
She assailed the police for denying Hill aid for more than five minutes while they attended to Coy, who was coughing, and offering him water.
"We are here because, even though it's Christmas, unfortunately police brutality and implicit bias don't even take a break for Christmas," said Benjamin Crump, who, along with two local attorneys, is representing Hill's family, whom he said "were expecting Big Daddy to bust through the door on Christmas morning, like he had always done."
…
Crump said that Hill's family had heard extended video in which Coy asks a colleague: "I need to figure out what the (expletive) am I going to say," to which the other officer replies: "I got you."
That statement is not shown in the video released by police after the shooting. Columbus Public Safety spokesman Glenn McEntyre said there is no other police version of the exchange (Narciso 1).
Newly released documents from Columbus police on Tuesday show officer Adam Coy, who was fired after he fatally shot Andre Hill, an unarmed Black man, had at least a nine-year history of reacting inappropriately in stressful situations.
The internal affairs and complaint records for Coy were released as part of a request under the Ohio Public Records Act. Coy's personnel file showed 90 citizen complaints filed against Coy in his 19 years with the division.
…
According to the documents released Tuesday, supervisors within the Columbus Division of Police were aware of Coy's errors in judgment as early as 2011.
A man filed a complaint against Coy following an arrest in February of that year. The records state the man was stopped after police received a call about a firearm being shown from a vehicle and then fired. The man also did not comply with police orders when he was stopped, the records state.
After an internal investigation, Coy received documented constructive counseling for swearing at the man "in an offensive manner" and not using the microphone for his cruiser video camera system. Columbus police did not have body cameras at the time.
Coy said the battery for the microphone had died and was charging in his cruiser at the time of the stop.
Coy and another officer were also given documented constructive counseling for driving irresponsibly and outside of policy.
Coy was recorded as going 83 mph in a 35 mph zone while responding to the call.
The man had also alleged he was struck by an officer, whom he did not identify. That allegation was not sustained because there was no evidence to prove or disprove it.
An investigator with the police division's internal affairs wrote in a report that there was "the sound of banging" captured on video, but no video captured the incident itself. Coy said the noise was him placing the man against the cruiser after the man had pushed himself off of it. Other officers who responded said they did not see any force.
In August 2012, Coy was also given documented constructive counseling after responding to a domestic dispute, according to internal affairs documents. Coy called the woman a "hood rat" and smoked a cigarette while waiting for a supervisor, the records state. Smoking while on duty is against division policy.
Two months later, Coy was again under internal investigation after stopping a suspected impaired driver in the Ohio State University campus area around 3:30 a.m. Oct. 16, 2012.
A person who lived in the area filed a complaint with police about what they believed to be excessive force on Coy's part during the traffic stop. Dash camera video showed Coy striking the suspected drunk driver's head four times against the hood of a police cruiser.
The investigation resulted in Coy being internally charged and having a hearing before then-Chief Kim Jacobs. During the hearing, Jacobs told Coy he had "too many complaints not to record everything" and that the division had to be concerned about "somebody from the outside looking into this type of behavior."
"You can't act out of fear and you can't act out of anger," Jacobs said. "We need you to act without having the tension there."
Coy said he had struck the suspect's head against the cruiser when the suspect "tensed up" while Coy was handcuffing him.
"I saw minor actions and movements ... in an inflated manner due to my lack of focus," Coy said.
After interviewing Coy, reviewing the dash camera video and interviewing witnesses, an internal affairs investigator wrote in her report that the driver was "at no time ... actively resisting."
"There is nothing to indicate that (level of) response was required," the investigator wrote. "The additional head strikes to the hood of the cruiser were not necessary and were excessive for the situation."
During the hearing, Coy said he had proactively sought out a stress management class, had reached out to an employee assistance program offered by the city and signed up for a use-of-force course offered by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy.
Coy again showed signs of lack of control and not using de-escalation techniques in 2018, according to records.
Coy had been helping with traffic in the area of the Ohio State Fairgrounds in August 2018 when he was flagged down about a large fight in the area. When Coy responded, according to the documents provided, he used profanity to keep members of the crowd out of the road and used mace against one person who was not complying with his orders.
The use of mace was determined to be within division policy.
Coy was also disciplined for using the term "hoodlum" when talking to one person in the crowd. His use of the term was captured on Coy's body camera.
Coy was given documented constructive counseling for "gratuitous" use of profanity at the scene that "only served to antagonize," a commander wrote (Bruner 1-3).
A Columbus police officer who was fired after fatally shooting a Black man in December was arrested and charged with felony murder on Wednesday [February 2021], Attorney General Dave Yost of Ohio announced.
The officer, Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran who is white, was also charged with felonious assault and two counts of dereliction of duty.
Mr. Coy shot Andre Hill four times after responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle. When he and another officer arrived at the scene, Mr. Coy found Mr. Hill in a garage and opened fire within seconds.
Mr. Yost said his office acted as a special prosecutor in the case, reviewing evidence, interviewing witnesses and presenting charges to a grand jury, which indicted Mr. Coy on Wednesday.
“The vast virtue of law enforcement is diminished by the very few bad actors among its ranks, and only by holding a bad actor accountable can that virtue be sustained,” Mr. Yost said at a news conference. “Here’s what I mean in plain English: same rules for everybody.”
…
Mr. Coy’s lawyer, Mark Collins, said that he had expected an indictment because of “the low threshold of probable cause,” but that the specific charges were surprising. He said the evidence would show that Mr. Coy was justified in his use of force and that the former officer believed that Mr. Hill was holding a silver revolver in one hand.
“Police officers have to make these split-second decisions, and they can be mistaken,” said Mr. Collins, who said Mr. Hill was actually holding a keychain. “If they are mistaken, as long as there’s an honest belief and that mistake is reasonable, the action is justified” (Wright “Former” 1-2).
In January, [the mayor] Mr. Ginther demoted the former Columbus police chief, Thomas Quinlan, who he said had lost the public’s trust after failing to “successfully implement the reform and change I expect and that the community demands,” according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The City Council also unanimously passed Andre’s Law, named after Mr. Hill, which mandates the use of body cameras by city police during any action by law enforcement, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The law also requires officers to give aid and call for medics if they use any force that causes injuries.
…
At the news conference, Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the family, thanked the city’s leadership for settling the case so quickly and for establishing the new precedent “that we will value all life equally” (Wright “Columbus” 3).
The city of Columbus, Ohio, has agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Andre Hill, a 47-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a Columbus police officer in December.
It is the largest such settlement in the city's history, and the largest pretrial settlement in a police use-of-force case in state history, lawyers said.
"It's one step toward something. It doesn't help or doesn't take the scar off of our hearts that we still have from my dad not being here," said Hill's daughter Karissa Hill at a press conference after the settlement was announced. "But it's something, and it's a start."
…
… What do we want the example to be for our children?" said civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who has represented Hill's family, along with many others of those killed by police. "When you see wrong, then your obligation is to do right."
The department fired Coy on December 28 for failing to turn on his body camera and for not providing medical aid.
He has since been charged with murder and felonious assault. He was arrested in February [2021] and was released on a $1 million bond. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Coy has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Two federal investigations, one by the FBI and one by the U.S. attorney for central Ohio, are also underway.
"No amount of money will ever bring Andre Hill back to his family, but we believe this is an important and necessary step in the right direction," said Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein in a statement.
In addition to the $10 million payment, the settlement requires the city to rename a municipal gym after Hill by the end of 2021.
Hill's daughter Karissa held her own daughter as she spoke to reporters later.
"My daughter's three," she said. "She might not understand it now, but when she's older, she will definitely understand the legacy that her Big Daddy left behind for her" (Sullivan 1).
[You may watch a “Good Morning America” (GMA) produced video of this shooting incident by pasting the following on Google]
Police body camera footage show new details in Andre Hill ...
Works cited:
Bruner, Bethany. “New Documents Show Ex-Columbus Officer Adam Coy Had History of Inappropriate Reactions.” The Columbus Dispatch, January 12, 2021. Net. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/l...
Narciso, Dean. “Family, Friends and Strangers Support Andre' Hill, Demand Police Reforms.” The Columbus Dispatch, updated December 28, 2020. Net. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/c...
Sullivan, Becky. “City of Columbus To Pay $10 Million in Settlement with Family of Andre Hill.” NPR, May 14, 2021. Net. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/14/996979...
Wright, Will. “Columbus Police Kill Black Man Weeks after Protests against Brutality.” The New York Times, updated May 14, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us...
Wright, Will. “Former Columbus Police Officer Is Charged with Murder.” The New York Times, February 3, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/us...
August 1, 2021
Bad Apples --- December 4, 2020, Casey Goodson Jr.
The mother of Casey Goodson Jr., the man shot to death last week by a Franklin County Sheriff’s deputy, is speaking out on her son’s behalf.
“I want murder charges,” Goodson’s mother, Tamala Payne, told NBC4 on Wednesday afternoon. “I want (the deputy’s) badge taken. I want him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“If it was us, we’d be in jail by now. But because it was an officer, I have to wait months upon months and weeks upon weeks for my son’s death to be avenged.”
Goodson died Friday after being shot by Deputy Jason Meade, who was on assignment with the U.S. Marshal’s Service fugitive task force in the Northland area. Goodson was not related to the marshal’s operations.
An attorney working for Goodson’s family, Sean Walton, expressed frustration with the early stages of the investigation into Goodson’s death. It was offered by Columbus police to the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations, which said it wouldn’t get involved since it was invited to come in days after the shooting.
“This investigation is being led by people who believe that officers act correctly almost all of the time,” Walton said.
Payne and Walton also were frustrated by initial reports by officers that the shooting was justified, especially considering that versions of what happened differ from police accounts and Goodson’s family.
According to police, as the marshals operations were wrapping up, Goodson drove past them waving a gun. Several officers followed him, and when they caught up to him, commanded him to drop the weapon. After a verbal exchange, Meade fired at Goodson.
The Franklin County coroner reported Wednesday that Goodson was struck several times in his torso.
In their version, Goodson’s relatives said he was returning home from a dentist’s appointment with Subway sandwiches. He was shot and killed as he unlocked his door and entered his home. His death was witnessed by Goodson’s 72-year-old grandmother and two toddlers who were near the door.
Police and Goodson’s family both say Goodson had a permit to carry a concealed weapon (CCW), and Payne said that her son wanted to become a CCW instructor.
Walton said, “I get so upset when somebody asks why did Casey have a gun? Casey wanted to protect his family. That was his right. Casey was brave because he took on that weight of having a CCW knowing that he may die.”
Walton said that Goodson willingly put himself at increased risk by carrying a concealed weapon as a Black man.
“Black people deserve the right to be able to protect themselves in this country,” Walton said, “because nobody else protects us.”
Columbus police and the FBI are investigating the shooting, and the results of their investigation will be turned over the Franklin County prosecutor’s office for presentation to a grand jury.
On Wednesday, Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin issued a statement expressing sympathy for Goodson’s survivors as well as for Meade, and asking that the investigation be allowed to play out.
…
… Payne … wants to fight for justice for her son and for people to know about him in different ways, as the animal lover that he was and as a good brother.
“It just hurts,” she said. “It hurts because we’re never going to have that again. We’re never going to see his funny side or get to watch him dance with his siblings, because he loved to dance and make videos.
“It hurts” (Charles 1-2).
During the task force operation in Columbus, Meade reported seeing a man with a gun and was investigating the situation when reportedly there was a verbal exchange prior to the shooting, Columbus police previously said.
An attorney for Meade says Goodson pointed a gun at the deputy prior to the shooting, adding "there has been confirmation that our client gave verbal commands for Mr. Goodson to drop the gun."
Police have said no other officers witnessed the shooting, there have been no civilian eyewitnesses identified and there is no body camera footage because Franklin County Sheriff's task force officers aren't issued body cameras. Meade's attorney, Mark Collins, also noted no eyewitnesses have been identified.
Attorneys for Goodson's family said in their own news release "neither the City of Columbus nor any other investigatory agency has alleged that Casey Goodson pointed a gun before Meade pulled the trigger."
"With Meade's statement issued nearly one full week after he killed Casey, it is critical to note that this is a classic defense often claimed by police after they shoot and kill someone," they said. "It is also critical to remember that often the evidence does not support these claims."
Peter Tobin, US Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio, said last Friday the fugitive task force was wrapping up an unrelated investigation when a deputy saw a man "driving down the street waving a gun." The man was confronted by the deputy and "allegedly started to pull a gun and the officer fired," Tobin previously told reporters. He added the shooting appeared justified but would be investigated.
Goddson's family attorneys criticized Columbus authorities Thursday, saying they proceeded "through their investigation" with the assumption in mind that Goodson's shooting was justified.
"Casey was treated as a criminal. Not only Casey but his family were treated as suspects. They were treated as criminals," family attorney Sarah Gelsomino said.
The responding officers, she added, "brought with them their bias against Casey, and in favor of Meade" (Maxouris 1).
The Franklin County Sheriff's SWAT deputy who shot and killed Casey Goodson Jr. on Dec. 4 is also a Baptist pastor and has used his faith to justify law enforcement’s use of force.
Michael Jason Meade, a 17-year sheriff's department veteran who goes by Jason, described use of force as "righteous release" in a 2018 video posted on YouTube by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office.
…
"There is release in our job that, righteously, we can actually have a use of force," Meade said.
Meade, 42, was assigned to warrants and extraditions with the sheriff's SWAT unit and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in December 2013.
Since 2014, Meade has been pastor at Rosedale Free Will Baptist Church in the unincorporated community of Irwin in Madison County, described by Associate Pastor Paul Moore as “a little country church” with about 80 congregants.
Meade served in Iraq in 2005 with the storied Lima Company as a reserve Marine. He and his wife, Abby, have two children.
In another 2018 recording of Meade's comments on law enforcement and faith, he described his assignment with the U.S. Marshals task force as "hunting people."
Meade told an audience of fellow Free Will Baptist Pastors at a conference in 2018 about his job looking for fugitives.
“I hunt people," he said, garnering laughter. "It’s a great job, I love it."
In the 2018 sermon posted online and since taken down by the Ohio Free Will Baptist Association, Meade was preaching on the biblical story of David and Goliath and talked about how he is justified in throwing the first punch.
About 30 minutes into the 37-minute sermon, Meade tells the audience where he works and that his SWAT colleagues and bosses were there to see him preach.
He told the audience that he has never been punched in the face during his 14 years on the job.
"Because I learned long ago I got to throw the first punch. And I learned long ago why I'm justified in throwing the first punch,” Meade said. "Don't look up here like 'police brutality.' People I hit, you wish you could hit, trust me.”
Meade also said it's contagious when someone "throws the first punch. "He likened it to David hitting Goliath using a slingshot.
"One of my SWAT guys throws a punch, I gotta throw one in, too," Meade said. "It's the truth. We have this little saying, 'Hey, if you're going to get in trouble, I'm going to get in trouble, too. You get days off, I get days off, too. We'll make a vacation out of it.'”
In June 2018, shortly before the video was posted by the Sheriff's Office, Meade was among seven officers who fired their weapons during a standoff in Pike County that ended with two men dead.
…
Meade's personnel file shows that, in 2010, his supervisors at the Sheriff's Office requested he be moved off the Special Investigations Unit, which investigates drug crimes, because he didn't live up to the expectations of an investigator after almost two years in the unit.
“After numerous attempts to correct problems, Det. Meade persists in his deficiencies,” Sgt. D.R. Hunt wrote to the sheriff.
Hunt also noted a confrontation between Meade and a corporal in front of co-workers and people from other agencies that "rose to the level of insubordination."
In an evaluation in September 2010, Lt. Shawn Bain rated Meade below expectations for quantity, quality and timeliness. He described how Meade did not prepare search warrants regularly or have enough of them, in one case not filing a robbery report until seven months after it happened.
…
After he left the Special Investigations Unit, Meade was transferred on Feb. 12, 2012, to patrol children services relief and then transferred again less than a month later on March 6, 2012, when he was selected to be on patrol.
…
On Dec. 4, Meade was working with the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force searching for a wanted suspect in Columbus' Northland area, where Goodson lived. The unsuccessful effort was concluding when U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin said Meade saw a man drive by waving a handgun.
Meade confronted Goodson as he exited his car on Estates Place, where Goodson, a 23-year-old Black man, was entering his grandmother's home. Tobin said Meade ordered Goodson to drop his weapon, commands heard by a civilian nearby.
Goodson's family said he was coming inside with food for his siblings after a dentist appointment when he was shot in the back three times and fell into the kitchen of the home (King 1-2).
The family account of what happened is different from what officers on the scene relayed. Goodson’s mother said the officer shot him as he was walking into the house.
“They shot him in his back three times. He had food in his hands and was unlocking the door walking in. He was in between the screen door and big door when the officer shot. Casey made it thru the door and fell on the floor hands the fuck up, his food, his mask, and his air pod were all right there with him,” said his mother, Tamala Payne, in a social media post. ...
On Twitter, his sister Kylee Harper stated that her brother had been walking from his car trying to get into his house.
“My brother literally walked across the yard, walked into the back fence to get to the side door, had his subway and mask in one hand, keys in the other,” Harper tweeted. In a similar post on Facebook, she explicitly said the officers were lying about what happened.
“They are lying! My brother literally walked across the yard, walked into the back fence to get to the side door, had his subway and mask in one hand keys in the other,
UNLOCKED AND OPENED THE DOOR and stepped in the house before shooting him. IF HE WAS SUCH A THREAT WHY DID YOU WAIT SO LONG TO SHOOT?! WHY DID YOU KILL A MAN WALKING INTO HIS OWN HOME?! HE JUST WANTED TO ENJOY HIS SUBWAY AFTER LEAVING THE DENTISTS OFFICE AND NOW MY 23 YEAR OLD BROTHER WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO LIVE HIS LIFE, TO HAVE A FAMILY, NOTHING! THEY TOOK THAT MANS FUTURE FROM HIM AND CHANGED ALL OF OURS. this is just really unbelievable. My outlook on life has completely changed. I am grateful for everyone in my life. I love all of y’all. Please tell everyone you care about that you love them as much as you can.”
Another sibling, Janae Sanford, also shared a post on Facebook detailing the same story.
“He was in that black car walked from the black car past the front of our house through the gate to the door, and in our house, he was shot in his back through his screen door!” she wrote. “If he was waving his gun around, why didn’t y’all handle it when he parked and got all his stuff out of the car? He had no clue of what was happening, my poor brother,” she wrote in the post.
…
Following the incident, many on social media and local organizers began demanding to see body camera footage of the incident in the hopes it would provide clarity. For example, organizers held a vigil for Goodson the night after being killed, and they included several demands. One of those was to see the body camera footage.
But the Franklin County Sheriff’s office doesn’t use body cameras, Marc Gofstein, a spokesperson for the office, said via email (Grisso and Goins 1-2).
A Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputy who was executing a warrant fatally shot a 23-year-old Black man uninvolved in the warrant six times — five times in the back and once in the gluteus — according to a coroner’s autopsy released Thursday.
The attorneys for the family of Casey Goodson Jr., who was killed outside his home on Dec. 6, also released the autopsy report early on Wednesday.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said Friday that the autopsy report was "shocking, disturbing, and infuriating."
"Now that that autopsy is complete, it's time to see the grand jury, and move on with this process, and hold folks accountable. That's what we need to do is get justice for Casey Goodson, for Ms. Payne and his family," Ginther said.
Goodson was shot outside his home according to court documents, and he collapsed near the doorway. Goodson had been holding sandwiches, a keychain and was legally carrying a firearm.
Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin wrote in a statement Wednesday that while the autopsy is an important part of the investigation, more details are needed to understand what happened.
Goodson’s mother, Tamala Payne, shared her raw emotion in a Facebook post Thursday morning.
“Hey my baby....It’s been a sleepless night! You’ve been on my mind heavy!!! After seeing the pictures of your beautiful body riddled with bullets, speaking with Dr. Ortiz personally over a month ago and reading this report I still for the life of me can’t grasp this happened to you and I know it’s real!!! My heart just hurts soooooo bad BC you were for the right thing!!! But now the world knows the truth!!!,” she wrote. “It’s time this coward is thrown in jail like the dirty dog he is!!! Although my patience are super thin I am humbled by the fact that I know in my heart god’s hands is on this and we will prevail...I won’t stop until we do!!!!!”
Franklin County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Meade, who has not been charged with a crime, has been placed on administrative leave. Baldwin said Wednesday the department will take further actions against Meade if evidence shows he used force when Goodson was not a threat, but said, “criminal investigations over the years have shown that the physical location of gunshot wounds alone do not always tell the entire story of what happened” (Taylor and Grieve 1-2).
Works cited:
Charles, Kerry. “ Mother Says, ‘I Want Murder Charges’ against Deputy Who Shot and Killed Casey Goodson Jr.” NBC4i, updated December 9, 2020. Net. https://www.nbc4i.com/news/mother-say...
Grisso, Jaelynn and Goins, Davante’. “Family of Columbus Man Killed by Officer Say the Police Are Lying.” Matter News, updated May 6, 2021. Net. https://www.matternews.org/crossing-t...
King, Danae. “Ohio Deputy Who Killed Casey Goodson Has Used Faith To Justify Use of Force Before.” USA Today, December 29, 2020. Net. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...
Maxouris, Christina. “Here's What We Know about the Casey Goodson Jr. Fatal Police Shooting.” KCTV5, December 12, 2020. Net.
https://www.kctv5.com/heres-what-we-k...
Taylor, Lydia and Grieve, Pete. “Shocking" Autopsy Shows Casey Goodson Jr. Shot 6 Times by Ohio Sheriff’s Deputy.” Spectrum News 1, March 19, 2021. Net. https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus...
“I want murder charges,” Goodson’s mother, Tamala Payne, told NBC4 on Wednesday afternoon. “I want (the deputy’s) badge taken. I want him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“If it was us, we’d be in jail by now. But because it was an officer, I have to wait months upon months and weeks upon weeks for my son’s death to be avenged.”
Goodson died Friday after being shot by Deputy Jason Meade, who was on assignment with the U.S. Marshal’s Service fugitive task force in the Northland area. Goodson was not related to the marshal’s operations.
An attorney working for Goodson’s family, Sean Walton, expressed frustration with the early stages of the investigation into Goodson’s death. It was offered by Columbus police to the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations, which said it wouldn’t get involved since it was invited to come in days after the shooting.
“This investigation is being led by people who believe that officers act correctly almost all of the time,” Walton said.
Payne and Walton also were frustrated by initial reports by officers that the shooting was justified, especially considering that versions of what happened differ from police accounts and Goodson’s family.
According to police, as the marshals operations were wrapping up, Goodson drove past them waving a gun. Several officers followed him, and when they caught up to him, commanded him to drop the weapon. After a verbal exchange, Meade fired at Goodson.
The Franklin County coroner reported Wednesday that Goodson was struck several times in his torso.
In their version, Goodson’s relatives said he was returning home from a dentist’s appointment with Subway sandwiches. He was shot and killed as he unlocked his door and entered his home. His death was witnessed by Goodson’s 72-year-old grandmother and two toddlers who were near the door.
Police and Goodson’s family both say Goodson had a permit to carry a concealed weapon (CCW), and Payne said that her son wanted to become a CCW instructor.
Walton said, “I get so upset when somebody asks why did Casey have a gun? Casey wanted to protect his family. That was his right. Casey was brave because he took on that weight of having a CCW knowing that he may die.”
Walton said that Goodson willingly put himself at increased risk by carrying a concealed weapon as a Black man.
“Black people deserve the right to be able to protect themselves in this country,” Walton said, “because nobody else protects us.”
Columbus police and the FBI are investigating the shooting, and the results of their investigation will be turned over the Franklin County prosecutor’s office for presentation to a grand jury.
On Wednesday, Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin issued a statement expressing sympathy for Goodson’s survivors as well as for Meade, and asking that the investigation be allowed to play out.
…
… Payne … wants to fight for justice for her son and for people to know about him in different ways, as the animal lover that he was and as a good brother.
“It just hurts,” she said. “It hurts because we’re never going to have that again. We’re never going to see his funny side or get to watch him dance with his siblings, because he loved to dance and make videos.
“It hurts” (Charles 1-2).
During the task force operation in Columbus, Meade reported seeing a man with a gun and was investigating the situation when reportedly there was a verbal exchange prior to the shooting, Columbus police previously said.
An attorney for Meade says Goodson pointed a gun at the deputy prior to the shooting, adding "there has been confirmation that our client gave verbal commands for Mr. Goodson to drop the gun."
Police have said no other officers witnessed the shooting, there have been no civilian eyewitnesses identified and there is no body camera footage because Franklin County Sheriff's task force officers aren't issued body cameras. Meade's attorney, Mark Collins, also noted no eyewitnesses have been identified.
Attorneys for Goodson's family said in their own news release "neither the City of Columbus nor any other investigatory agency has alleged that Casey Goodson pointed a gun before Meade pulled the trigger."
"With Meade's statement issued nearly one full week after he killed Casey, it is critical to note that this is a classic defense often claimed by police after they shoot and kill someone," they said. "It is also critical to remember that often the evidence does not support these claims."
Peter Tobin, US Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio, said last Friday the fugitive task force was wrapping up an unrelated investigation when a deputy saw a man "driving down the street waving a gun." The man was confronted by the deputy and "allegedly started to pull a gun and the officer fired," Tobin previously told reporters. He added the shooting appeared justified but would be investigated.
Goddson's family attorneys criticized Columbus authorities Thursday, saying they proceeded "through their investigation" with the assumption in mind that Goodson's shooting was justified.
"Casey was treated as a criminal. Not only Casey but his family were treated as suspects. They were treated as criminals," family attorney Sarah Gelsomino said.
The responding officers, she added, "brought with them their bias against Casey, and in favor of Meade" (Maxouris 1).
The Franklin County Sheriff's SWAT deputy who shot and killed Casey Goodson Jr. on Dec. 4 is also a Baptist pastor and has used his faith to justify law enforcement’s use of force.
Michael Jason Meade, a 17-year sheriff's department veteran who goes by Jason, described use of force as "righteous release" in a 2018 video posted on YouTube by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office.
…
"There is release in our job that, righteously, we can actually have a use of force," Meade said.
Meade, 42, was assigned to warrants and extraditions with the sheriff's SWAT unit and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in December 2013.
Since 2014, Meade has been pastor at Rosedale Free Will Baptist Church in the unincorporated community of Irwin in Madison County, described by Associate Pastor Paul Moore as “a little country church” with about 80 congregants.
Meade served in Iraq in 2005 with the storied Lima Company as a reserve Marine. He and his wife, Abby, have two children.
In another 2018 recording of Meade's comments on law enforcement and faith, he described his assignment with the U.S. Marshals task force as "hunting people."
Meade told an audience of fellow Free Will Baptist Pastors at a conference in 2018 about his job looking for fugitives.
“I hunt people," he said, garnering laughter. "It’s a great job, I love it."
In the 2018 sermon posted online and since taken down by the Ohio Free Will Baptist Association, Meade was preaching on the biblical story of David and Goliath and talked about how he is justified in throwing the first punch.
About 30 minutes into the 37-minute sermon, Meade tells the audience where he works and that his SWAT colleagues and bosses were there to see him preach.
He told the audience that he has never been punched in the face during his 14 years on the job.
"Because I learned long ago I got to throw the first punch. And I learned long ago why I'm justified in throwing the first punch,” Meade said. "Don't look up here like 'police brutality.' People I hit, you wish you could hit, trust me.”
Meade also said it's contagious when someone "throws the first punch. "He likened it to David hitting Goliath using a slingshot.
"One of my SWAT guys throws a punch, I gotta throw one in, too," Meade said. "It's the truth. We have this little saying, 'Hey, if you're going to get in trouble, I'm going to get in trouble, too. You get days off, I get days off, too. We'll make a vacation out of it.'”
In June 2018, shortly before the video was posted by the Sheriff's Office, Meade was among seven officers who fired their weapons during a standoff in Pike County that ended with two men dead.
…
Meade's personnel file shows that, in 2010, his supervisors at the Sheriff's Office requested he be moved off the Special Investigations Unit, which investigates drug crimes, because he didn't live up to the expectations of an investigator after almost two years in the unit.
“After numerous attempts to correct problems, Det. Meade persists in his deficiencies,” Sgt. D.R. Hunt wrote to the sheriff.
Hunt also noted a confrontation between Meade and a corporal in front of co-workers and people from other agencies that "rose to the level of insubordination."
In an evaluation in September 2010, Lt. Shawn Bain rated Meade below expectations for quantity, quality and timeliness. He described how Meade did not prepare search warrants regularly or have enough of them, in one case not filing a robbery report until seven months after it happened.
…
After he left the Special Investigations Unit, Meade was transferred on Feb. 12, 2012, to patrol children services relief and then transferred again less than a month later on March 6, 2012, when he was selected to be on patrol.
…
On Dec. 4, Meade was working with the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force searching for a wanted suspect in Columbus' Northland area, where Goodson lived. The unsuccessful effort was concluding when U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin said Meade saw a man drive by waving a handgun.
Meade confronted Goodson as he exited his car on Estates Place, where Goodson, a 23-year-old Black man, was entering his grandmother's home. Tobin said Meade ordered Goodson to drop his weapon, commands heard by a civilian nearby.
Goodson's family said he was coming inside with food for his siblings after a dentist appointment when he was shot in the back three times and fell into the kitchen of the home (King 1-2).
The family account of what happened is different from what officers on the scene relayed. Goodson’s mother said the officer shot him as he was walking into the house.
“They shot him in his back three times. He had food in his hands and was unlocking the door walking in. He was in between the screen door and big door when the officer shot. Casey made it thru the door and fell on the floor hands the fuck up, his food, his mask, and his air pod were all right there with him,” said his mother, Tamala Payne, in a social media post. ...
On Twitter, his sister Kylee Harper stated that her brother had been walking from his car trying to get into his house.
“My brother literally walked across the yard, walked into the back fence to get to the side door, had his subway and mask in one hand, keys in the other,” Harper tweeted. In a similar post on Facebook, she explicitly said the officers were lying about what happened.
“They are lying! My brother literally walked across the yard, walked into the back fence to get to the side door, had his subway and mask in one hand keys in the other,
UNLOCKED AND OPENED THE DOOR and stepped in the house before shooting him. IF HE WAS SUCH A THREAT WHY DID YOU WAIT SO LONG TO SHOOT?! WHY DID YOU KILL A MAN WALKING INTO HIS OWN HOME?! HE JUST WANTED TO ENJOY HIS SUBWAY AFTER LEAVING THE DENTISTS OFFICE AND NOW MY 23 YEAR OLD BROTHER WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO LIVE HIS LIFE, TO HAVE A FAMILY, NOTHING! THEY TOOK THAT MANS FUTURE FROM HIM AND CHANGED ALL OF OURS. this is just really unbelievable. My outlook on life has completely changed. I am grateful for everyone in my life. I love all of y’all. Please tell everyone you care about that you love them as much as you can.”
Another sibling, Janae Sanford, also shared a post on Facebook detailing the same story.
“He was in that black car walked from the black car past the front of our house through the gate to the door, and in our house, he was shot in his back through his screen door!” she wrote. “If he was waving his gun around, why didn’t y’all handle it when he parked and got all his stuff out of the car? He had no clue of what was happening, my poor brother,” she wrote in the post.
…
Following the incident, many on social media and local organizers began demanding to see body camera footage of the incident in the hopes it would provide clarity. For example, organizers held a vigil for Goodson the night after being killed, and they included several demands. One of those was to see the body camera footage.
But the Franklin County Sheriff’s office doesn’t use body cameras, Marc Gofstein, a spokesperson for the office, said via email (Grisso and Goins 1-2).
A Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputy who was executing a warrant fatally shot a 23-year-old Black man uninvolved in the warrant six times — five times in the back and once in the gluteus — according to a coroner’s autopsy released Thursday.
The attorneys for the family of Casey Goodson Jr., who was killed outside his home on Dec. 6, also released the autopsy report early on Wednesday.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said Friday that the autopsy report was "shocking, disturbing, and infuriating."
"Now that that autopsy is complete, it's time to see the grand jury, and move on with this process, and hold folks accountable. That's what we need to do is get justice for Casey Goodson, for Ms. Payne and his family," Ginther said.
Goodson was shot outside his home according to court documents, and he collapsed near the doorway. Goodson had been holding sandwiches, a keychain and was legally carrying a firearm.
Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin wrote in a statement Wednesday that while the autopsy is an important part of the investigation, more details are needed to understand what happened.
Goodson’s mother, Tamala Payne, shared her raw emotion in a Facebook post Thursday morning.
“Hey my baby....It’s been a sleepless night! You’ve been on my mind heavy!!! After seeing the pictures of your beautiful body riddled with bullets, speaking with Dr. Ortiz personally over a month ago and reading this report I still for the life of me can’t grasp this happened to you and I know it’s real!!! My heart just hurts soooooo bad BC you were for the right thing!!! But now the world knows the truth!!!,” she wrote. “It’s time this coward is thrown in jail like the dirty dog he is!!! Although my patience are super thin I am humbled by the fact that I know in my heart god’s hands is on this and we will prevail...I won’t stop until we do!!!!!”
Franklin County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Meade, who has not been charged with a crime, has been placed on administrative leave. Baldwin said Wednesday the department will take further actions against Meade if evidence shows he used force when Goodson was not a threat, but said, “criminal investigations over the years have shown that the physical location of gunshot wounds alone do not always tell the entire story of what happened” (Taylor and Grieve 1-2).
Works cited:
Charles, Kerry. “ Mother Says, ‘I Want Murder Charges’ against Deputy Who Shot and Killed Casey Goodson Jr.” NBC4i, updated December 9, 2020. Net. https://www.nbc4i.com/news/mother-say...
Grisso, Jaelynn and Goins, Davante’. “Family of Columbus Man Killed by Officer Say the Police Are Lying.” Matter News, updated May 6, 2021. Net. https://www.matternews.org/crossing-t...
King, Danae. “Ohio Deputy Who Killed Casey Goodson Has Used Faith To Justify Use of Force Before.” USA Today, December 29, 2020. Net. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...
Maxouris, Christina. “Here's What We Know about the Casey Goodson Jr. Fatal Police Shooting.” KCTV5, December 12, 2020. Net.
https://www.kctv5.com/heres-what-we-k...
Taylor, Lydia and Grieve, Pete. “Shocking" Autopsy Shows Casey Goodson Jr. Shot 6 Times by Ohio Sheriff’s Deputy.” Spectrum News 1, March 19, 2021. Net. https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus...
July 30, 2021
Bad Apples --- October 3, 2020--Jonathan Price
Shuan Lucas, the Wolfe City Police Officer who shot Jonathan Price, has been charged with murder, the Texas Rangers said in a statement. “At approximately 8:24 p.m. on Oct. 3rd, 2020, Wolfe City Police Officer Shaun Lucas responded to a disturbance call at the 100 block of Santa Fe Street for a possible fight in progress,” the statement read. “Officer Lucas made contact with a man, later identified as 31-year-old Jonathan Price, who was reportedly involved in the disturbance. Officer Lucas attempted to detain Price, who resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away.
Officer Lucas deployed his TASER, followed by discharging his service weapon striking Price. EMS was notified and Price was transported to Hunt Regional Hospital, where he later died. The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectionably reasonable. The Texas Rangers have charged Officer Lucas with the offense of Murder and booked him into the Hunt County Jail. …
...
Price’s family and a witness said Price had tried to break up a domestic argument between a couple inside the store. The dispute continued outside the store, at which point police arrived. Police reportedly used a taser on Price before shooting him.
Price’s mother, Marcella Louis, told WFAA that she rushed to the gas station after learning her son had been shot. “They wouldn’t let me get close to my baby,” she said. “I just wanted to hold his hands. They wouldn’t let me do that… They took my son from me. They took my baby.”
…
Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Price’s family who’s also been involved in other high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases, wrote on Instagram Sunday: “Yesterday [Price] noticed a man assaulting a woman and he intervened. When police arrived, I’m told, he raised his hands and attempted to explain what was going on. Police fired tasers at him and when his body convulsed from the electrical current, they ‘perceived a threat’ and shot him to death.” On Monday, he [Merritt] appeared near the site of the shooting with Price’s family, and called for the officer involved to be arrested. “He deserves justice because he was a human citizen who was not breaking the law and he was gunned down by police officers,” he said.
According to reports, Price was a beloved figure in Wolfe City, a town of about 1,500 located about an hour northeast of Dallas.
He’d been a star athlete at the city’s public schools growing up and had returned to his hometown, where he worked as a trainer and for the city’s public works department.
Merritt wrote that “he was known as a hometown hero. Motivational speaker, trainer, professional athlete and community advocate — he was dearly loved by so many.”
Will Middlebrooks, a childhood friend of Price’s and an ex-professional baseball player, posted a photo of Price on Facebook along with the note: “See this face? This is the face of one of my childhood friends. The face of my first ever favorite teammate. The face of a good man. But unfortunately it’s the face of a man whose life was taken away from him last night with his hands in the air, while a small town East Texas cop shot him dead. Why? Bc he was trying to break up a fight at a gas station… for some reason he was singled out.
I’ll let you do the math. There’s no excuses this time…’he was a criminal’… Nope, not this time. ‘He resisted arrest, just comply with the cops’.. Nope that one doesn’t work this time either. This was purely an act of racism. Period. So, for all of you that think this is all bullshit, you need to check yourselves.”(Blistein 1-3).
"My friend tried to break up a fight between a man and a woman at a gas station, bc that’s how we were raised. Don’t put your hands on a woman. Yet he was singled out in the fight, shot and killed... unarmed... no weapon... just his skin color," Middlebrooks posted on Twitter (Midkiff 1).
The entire interaction between Texas police officer Shaun Lucas and the 31-year-old Black man he shot and killed Saturday was captured in police body camera footage, according to the arrest affidavit released by investigators Wednesday.
Lucas, who is white, is facing murder charges following the incident at a gas station in Wolfe City. The investigation is being handled by the Texas Rangers.
...
Based on the bodycam footage, which has not been released to the public, the [police arrest] affidavit says that when Lucas arrived at the scene, Price greeted him and came "very close to Officer Lucas, asking 'You doing good?' multiple times while extending his hand in a handshake gesture."
"Price apologized for broken glass on the ground and stated someone had tried to 'wrap me up,'" the affidavit said.
Lucas told investigators that he thought that Price was intoxicated and attempted to detain Price, but Price allegedly stated, "I can't be detained," the affidavit said.
The officer then tried to detain Price "by grabbing his arm and using verbal commands," but was unsuccessful, the affidavit said. He then produced his Taser, according to the affidavit.
Lucas warned Price to comply or he would use his Taser, and when Price walked away, the officer fired the Taser, the affidavit said.
While being tased, Price walked toward Lucas and tried to reach for the weapon, at which point the officer took out his service weapon and fired four times, according to the affidavit.
Price died later that night at the hospital.
The affidavit concluded that the officer "did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of Price by discharging a firearm."
Lucas was arrested Monday night on murder charges and held on $1 million bond.
…
In a statement on Saturday's shooting, [Lucas’s attorney Robert] Rogers said, “Officer Lucas only discharged his weapon in accordance with Texas law when he was confronted with an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his Taser."
"It's just -- this is just -- I can't wrap my brain around this," Lucas' stepfather told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA Tuesday. "He's a good kid. He's devastated. He's devastated for everybody involved" (Pereira, Nathanson, and Scholz 1-2).
According to Texas Monthly, Price was raised by his single mom in Wolfe City, a small town northeast of Dallas. He was a high-school football star and went on to play at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene before working as a personal trainer in Dallas. He eventually moved back home and worked for the city government. He was known for giving inspirational talks to local athletes and working with kids, earning him the nickname Coach Price.
“I just grew up knowing him as the star athlete who was going to do big things someday,” an acquaintance told TM. “He was known as this stand-up guy who beat the odds.” Another friend called him a “pillar of the community.”
…
Friends and family say that witnesses told them Price was there breaking up a domestic dispute. “The situation was resolved before law enforcement arrived, according to witnesses,” [Attorney] Merritt said. “Why this officer still felt the need to Tase and shoot Jonathan is beyond comprehension.”
Witnesses also say that Price was shot in the back, but Texas Rangers haven’t commented on the specifics of where Lucas shot him.
“My son got life. I want him to get life,” Price’s mother, Marcella Louis, said of the charges against Lucas at a vigil in Wolfe City on Monday. “I want to see him have justice, to feel the pain I’m feeling.
Lucas has been placed on administrative leave. He was booked into the Hunt County jail on a $1 million bond; he is now being held in the Collin County jail. A full autopsy report of Price’s body is expected in six to eight weeks (Read 1-2).
A Fresno [California] family is pleading for people to remember the Texas man shot and killed a month ago by a rookie police officer in a small town.
"He was quiet," said Raylisa Price, whose brother, Jonathan, was gunned down Oct. 3. "He wasn't a mean person or violent. (He) just kept to himself, doing his thing."
Jonathan Price lived and died in northeast Texas, but he had two sisters, a nephew, and a niece in Fresno.
"All right," said family and friends as they released balloons in his honor. "This is for Jonathan Price. Say his name. Jonathan Price."
The name and the spirit of Jonathan Price flew across three states Tuesday as family members and friends marked his 32nd birthday.
The manner of his death made no sense to Jonathan's sister, Raylisa, who talked to Action News from her home in Fresno on her brother's birthday.
"He was just kind-hearted, like just soft-spoken," she said. "I've never seen him mad. Even if he was mad at something, he was just quiet, just mellow."
…
Raylisa Price thinks the 22-year-old may have been the only police officer in town who didn't know her brother, but Jonathan treated him like any other law enforcement.
"Greeted him, wanted to shake his hand, asking him how he's doing, that's just how he was." she said. "So to tase him and shoot him up like that, I'm just shocked."
Lucas said he tried to detain Jonathan and when he struggled, he fired four shots -- deadly shots.
At Jonathan's funeral, family members said we should all strive to be like the always smiling city employee, fitness trainer, and mentor to dozens of kids.
…
His sister wants to make sure people in the Central Valley and across the country remember her brother, and she wants Lucas to languish and be forgotten in prison.
"Because if my brother has to die and we can never see him again, he should never be able to see his family again," Raylisa Price said.
A grand jury convened Oct. 30 to decide what charges, if any, Lucas should face in court.
For now, he's in jail on a $1 million bail (Hoggard 1).
The white Texas police officer who tased and fatally shot Jonathan Price at a small town gas station this month is allegedly known by a number of locals for his overly-aggressive policing tactics.
Shaun Lucas, the Wolfe City police officer in question, had been on the force for less than six months before carrying out the deadly arrest of Price, an unarmed 31-year-old Black man.
Before Price’s shooting, however, Lucas had already cemented his reputation as an overzealous rookie with a tendency to harass the town’s Black residents, a number of locals claim, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
In the weeks following Lucas’ arrival in the small Texas town of 1,400 people, residents used social media to warn their neighbors about the “new cop.” The 22-year-old police officer, locals complained, was “another mean police officer” who pulled over “everything that moves at night.”
“Where the hell did he come from?” Veronica Brown, a Wolfe City resident, told the Washington Post. “He is the worst cop Wolfe City ever had.”
Lucas arrested Brown’s 65-year-old cousin, she claimed, after the young police officer mistakenly suspected her elderly relative was intoxicated due to a limp.
“He thought I was drunk,” the man, James Alton Brown, told the Post. “So he took me to jail.”
The charges were ultimately dropped, the newspaper reported.
Other Black residents, too, questioned Lucas’ overzealous approach to law enforcement — and went out of their way to avoid him.
…
“The officer, at some point, told Jon that he was going to be detained — Jon walked away,” [Attorney Lee] Merritt added. “He did not want to be detained. He was not interested in being detained, at which point Jon was tased."
After Lucas tased Price, he opened fire, letting off four rounds.
“The taser did not take Jon to the ground but it did cause his body to tense up and convulse from the shock,” Merritt explained. “While he was tensing up and convulsing from the shock he was shot.”
One bullet struck Pierce’s upper torso. Three other bullets were found lodged in an ice freezer at the gas station, according to the Post. Price was later pronounced dead at Hunt Regional Hospital. Body camera footage of the incident hasn’t yet been made available to the public (Geiger 1-2).
Blerim Elmazi, one of Price’s family attorneys, denied Price could have attempted to grab the stun gun because he was not close enough.
“The situation already was calm. There was no problem” when Lucas arrived,” said Elmazi.
“Officer Lucas completely and unreasonably escalated a situation when there really was no situation to begin with” (Gray 1).
The former Wolfe City police officer charged with the murder of 31-year-old Jonathan Price has pleaded not guilty. He remains in custody at the Collin County Jail in lieu of a $1 million bond.
…
An interim hearing to receive discovery evidence is set for May 4 (Cutshall 1).
[Paste the following on Google to watch an ABC produced video of initial coverage of the aftermath of the shooting]
What we know about the fatal police shooting of Jonathan ...
Works cited:
Blistein, Jon. “Jonathan Price Allegedly Tried to Break Up a Fight. Texas Police Killed Him.” Rolling Stone, updated October 6, 2020. Net.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/...
Cutshall, Amanda. “Former Officer Pleads Not Guilty to Jonathan Price Shooting Death.” eExtraNews, April 7, 2021. Net. https://eparisextra.com/crime/former-...
Geiger, Dorian. “Texas Cop Accused in Fatal Shooting of Black Man at Gas Station Has ‘History of Racism,’ Lawyer Says.” Oxygen, October 14, 2020. Net. https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/jon...
Gray, Madison J. “Jonathan Price Case: Ex-Cop Charged with Murder Harassed Black Residents.” BET, October 13, 2020. Net. https://www.bet.com/news/national/202...
Hogard, Corin. “Fresno Family Pleads for Outrage, Justice after Texas Brother Killed by Police Officer.” ABC30, November 8, 2020. Net. https://abc30.com/fresno-family-jonat...
Midkiff, Sarah. Jonathan Price Was a “Hometown Hero.” Police Shot & Killed Him for Trying To Break Up a Fight.” Refinery29, updated October 6, 2020. Net. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020...
Pereira, Ivan; Nathanson, Marc; and Scholz, James. “Bodycam Footage Suggests Jonathan Price Shooting Was Unwarranted, Affidavit Says.” ABC News, October 7, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodycam-foo...
Read, Bridget. “Everything We Know about the Killing of Jonathan Price.” The Cut, October 8, 2020. Net. https://www.thecut.com/2020/10/everyt...
Officer Lucas deployed his TASER, followed by discharging his service weapon striking Price. EMS was notified and Price was transported to Hunt Regional Hospital, where he later died. The preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectionably reasonable. The Texas Rangers have charged Officer Lucas with the offense of Murder and booked him into the Hunt County Jail. …
...
Price’s family and a witness said Price had tried to break up a domestic argument between a couple inside the store. The dispute continued outside the store, at which point police arrived. Police reportedly used a taser on Price before shooting him.
Price’s mother, Marcella Louis, told WFAA that she rushed to the gas station after learning her son had been shot. “They wouldn’t let me get close to my baby,” she said. “I just wanted to hold his hands. They wouldn’t let me do that… They took my son from me. They took my baby.”
…
Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Price’s family who’s also been involved in other high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases, wrote on Instagram Sunday: “Yesterday [Price] noticed a man assaulting a woman and he intervened. When police arrived, I’m told, he raised his hands and attempted to explain what was going on. Police fired tasers at him and when his body convulsed from the electrical current, they ‘perceived a threat’ and shot him to death.” On Monday, he [Merritt] appeared near the site of the shooting with Price’s family, and called for the officer involved to be arrested. “He deserves justice because he was a human citizen who was not breaking the law and he was gunned down by police officers,” he said.
According to reports, Price was a beloved figure in Wolfe City, a town of about 1,500 located about an hour northeast of Dallas.
He’d been a star athlete at the city’s public schools growing up and had returned to his hometown, where he worked as a trainer and for the city’s public works department.
Merritt wrote that “he was known as a hometown hero. Motivational speaker, trainer, professional athlete and community advocate — he was dearly loved by so many.”
Will Middlebrooks, a childhood friend of Price’s and an ex-professional baseball player, posted a photo of Price on Facebook along with the note: “See this face? This is the face of one of my childhood friends. The face of my first ever favorite teammate. The face of a good man. But unfortunately it’s the face of a man whose life was taken away from him last night with his hands in the air, while a small town East Texas cop shot him dead. Why? Bc he was trying to break up a fight at a gas station… for some reason he was singled out.
I’ll let you do the math. There’s no excuses this time…’he was a criminal’… Nope, not this time. ‘He resisted arrest, just comply with the cops’.. Nope that one doesn’t work this time either. This was purely an act of racism. Period. So, for all of you that think this is all bullshit, you need to check yourselves.”(Blistein 1-3).
"My friend tried to break up a fight between a man and a woman at a gas station, bc that’s how we were raised. Don’t put your hands on a woman. Yet he was singled out in the fight, shot and killed... unarmed... no weapon... just his skin color," Middlebrooks posted on Twitter (Midkiff 1).
The entire interaction between Texas police officer Shaun Lucas and the 31-year-old Black man he shot and killed Saturday was captured in police body camera footage, according to the arrest affidavit released by investigators Wednesday.
Lucas, who is white, is facing murder charges following the incident at a gas station in Wolfe City. The investigation is being handled by the Texas Rangers.
...
Based on the bodycam footage, which has not been released to the public, the [police arrest] affidavit says that when Lucas arrived at the scene, Price greeted him and came "very close to Officer Lucas, asking 'You doing good?' multiple times while extending his hand in a handshake gesture."
"Price apologized for broken glass on the ground and stated someone had tried to 'wrap me up,'" the affidavit said.
Lucas told investigators that he thought that Price was intoxicated and attempted to detain Price, but Price allegedly stated, "I can't be detained," the affidavit said.
The officer then tried to detain Price "by grabbing his arm and using verbal commands," but was unsuccessful, the affidavit said. He then produced his Taser, according to the affidavit.
Lucas warned Price to comply or he would use his Taser, and when Price walked away, the officer fired the Taser, the affidavit said.
While being tased, Price walked toward Lucas and tried to reach for the weapon, at which point the officer took out his service weapon and fired four times, according to the affidavit.
Price died later that night at the hospital.
The affidavit concluded that the officer "did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of Price by discharging a firearm."
Lucas was arrested Monday night on murder charges and held on $1 million bond.
…
In a statement on Saturday's shooting, [Lucas’s attorney Robert] Rogers said, “Officer Lucas only discharged his weapon in accordance with Texas law when he was confronted with an aggressive assailant who was attempting to take his Taser."
"It's just -- this is just -- I can't wrap my brain around this," Lucas' stepfather told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA Tuesday. "He's a good kid. He's devastated. He's devastated for everybody involved" (Pereira, Nathanson, and Scholz 1-2).
According to Texas Monthly, Price was raised by his single mom in Wolfe City, a small town northeast of Dallas. He was a high-school football star and went on to play at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene before working as a personal trainer in Dallas. He eventually moved back home and worked for the city government. He was known for giving inspirational talks to local athletes and working with kids, earning him the nickname Coach Price.
“I just grew up knowing him as the star athlete who was going to do big things someday,” an acquaintance told TM. “He was known as this stand-up guy who beat the odds.” Another friend called him a “pillar of the community.”
…
Friends and family say that witnesses told them Price was there breaking up a domestic dispute. “The situation was resolved before law enforcement arrived, according to witnesses,” [Attorney] Merritt said. “Why this officer still felt the need to Tase and shoot Jonathan is beyond comprehension.”
Witnesses also say that Price was shot in the back, but Texas Rangers haven’t commented on the specifics of where Lucas shot him.
“My son got life. I want him to get life,” Price’s mother, Marcella Louis, said of the charges against Lucas at a vigil in Wolfe City on Monday. “I want to see him have justice, to feel the pain I’m feeling.
Lucas has been placed on administrative leave. He was booked into the Hunt County jail on a $1 million bond; he is now being held in the Collin County jail. A full autopsy report of Price’s body is expected in six to eight weeks (Read 1-2).
A Fresno [California] family is pleading for people to remember the Texas man shot and killed a month ago by a rookie police officer in a small town.
"He was quiet," said Raylisa Price, whose brother, Jonathan, was gunned down Oct. 3. "He wasn't a mean person or violent. (He) just kept to himself, doing his thing."
Jonathan Price lived and died in northeast Texas, but he had two sisters, a nephew, and a niece in Fresno.
"All right," said family and friends as they released balloons in his honor. "This is for Jonathan Price. Say his name. Jonathan Price."
The name and the spirit of Jonathan Price flew across three states Tuesday as family members and friends marked his 32nd birthday.
The manner of his death made no sense to Jonathan's sister, Raylisa, who talked to Action News from her home in Fresno on her brother's birthday.
"He was just kind-hearted, like just soft-spoken," she said. "I've never seen him mad. Even if he was mad at something, he was just quiet, just mellow."
…
Raylisa Price thinks the 22-year-old may have been the only police officer in town who didn't know her brother, but Jonathan treated him like any other law enforcement.
"Greeted him, wanted to shake his hand, asking him how he's doing, that's just how he was." she said. "So to tase him and shoot him up like that, I'm just shocked."
Lucas said he tried to detain Jonathan and when he struggled, he fired four shots -- deadly shots.
At Jonathan's funeral, family members said we should all strive to be like the always smiling city employee, fitness trainer, and mentor to dozens of kids.
…
His sister wants to make sure people in the Central Valley and across the country remember her brother, and she wants Lucas to languish and be forgotten in prison.
"Because if my brother has to die and we can never see him again, he should never be able to see his family again," Raylisa Price said.
A grand jury convened Oct. 30 to decide what charges, if any, Lucas should face in court.
For now, he's in jail on a $1 million bail (Hoggard 1).
The white Texas police officer who tased and fatally shot Jonathan Price at a small town gas station this month is allegedly known by a number of locals for his overly-aggressive policing tactics.
Shaun Lucas, the Wolfe City police officer in question, had been on the force for less than six months before carrying out the deadly arrest of Price, an unarmed 31-year-old Black man.
Before Price’s shooting, however, Lucas had already cemented his reputation as an overzealous rookie with a tendency to harass the town’s Black residents, a number of locals claim, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
In the weeks following Lucas’ arrival in the small Texas town of 1,400 people, residents used social media to warn their neighbors about the “new cop.” The 22-year-old police officer, locals complained, was “another mean police officer” who pulled over “everything that moves at night.”
“Where the hell did he come from?” Veronica Brown, a Wolfe City resident, told the Washington Post. “He is the worst cop Wolfe City ever had.”
Lucas arrested Brown’s 65-year-old cousin, she claimed, after the young police officer mistakenly suspected her elderly relative was intoxicated due to a limp.
“He thought I was drunk,” the man, James Alton Brown, told the Post. “So he took me to jail.”
The charges were ultimately dropped, the newspaper reported.
Other Black residents, too, questioned Lucas’ overzealous approach to law enforcement — and went out of their way to avoid him.
…
“The officer, at some point, told Jon that he was going to be detained — Jon walked away,” [Attorney Lee] Merritt added. “He did not want to be detained. He was not interested in being detained, at which point Jon was tased."
After Lucas tased Price, he opened fire, letting off four rounds.
“The taser did not take Jon to the ground but it did cause his body to tense up and convulse from the shock,” Merritt explained. “While he was tensing up and convulsing from the shock he was shot.”
One bullet struck Pierce’s upper torso. Three other bullets were found lodged in an ice freezer at the gas station, according to the Post. Price was later pronounced dead at Hunt Regional Hospital. Body camera footage of the incident hasn’t yet been made available to the public (Geiger 1-2).
Blerim Elmazi, one of Price’s family attorneys, denied Price could have attempted to grab the stun gun because he was not close enough.
“The situation already was calm. There was no problem” when Lucas arrived,” said Elmazi.
“Officer Lucas completely and unreasonably escalated a situation when there really was no situation to begin with” (Gray 1).
The former Wolfe City police officer charged with the murder of 31-year-old Jonathan Price has pleaded not guilty. He remains in custody at the Collin County Jail in lieu of a $1 million bond.
…
An interim hearing to receive discovery evidence is set for May 4 (Cutshall 1).
[Paste the following on Google to watch an ABC produced video of initial coverage of the aftermath of the shooting]
What we know about the fatal police shooting of Jonathan ...
Works cited:
Blistein, Jon. “Jonathan Price Allegedly Tried to Break Up a Fight. Texas Police Killed Him.” Rolling Stone, updated October 6, 2020. Net.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/...
Cutshall, Amanda. “Former Officer Pleads Not Guilty to Jonathan Price Shooting Death.” eExtraNews, April 7, 2021. Net. https://eparisextra.com/crime/former-...
Geiger, Dorian. “Texas Cop Accused in Fatal Shooting of Black Man at Gas Station Has ‘History of Racism,’ Lawyer Says.” Oxygen, October 14, 2020. Net. https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/jon...
Gray, Madison J. “Jonathan Price Case: Ex-Cop Charged with Murder Harassed Black Residents.” BET, October 13, 2020. Net. https://www.bet.com/news/national/202...
Hogard, Corin. “Fresno Family Pleads for Outrage, Justice after Texas Brother Killed by Police Officer.” ABC30, November 8, 2020. Net. https://abc30.com/fresno-family-jonat...
Midkiff, Sarah. Jonathan Price Was a “Hometown Hero.” Police Shot & Killed Him for Trying To Break Up a Fight.” Refinery29, updated October 6, 2020. Net. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020...
Pereira, Ivan; Nathanson, Marc; and Scholz, James. “Bodycam Footage Suggests Jonathan Price Shooting Was Unwarranted, Affidavit Says.” ABC News, October 7, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/bodycam-foo...
Read, Bridget. “Everything We Know about the Killing of Jonathan Price.” The Cut, October 8, 2020. Net. https://www.thecut.com/2020/10/everyt...
July 25, 2021
Bad Apples --- 08-31-2020, Dijon Kizzee
An independent autopsy commissioned by the family of 29-year-old Black man Dijon Kizzee found that he was struck 15 times by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies last month, attorneys for the family said Tuesday.
Seven of the shots fired by deputies struck Kizzee on his back side, including arms and hands, said Attorney Carl Douglas. The fatal shot struck Kizzee in a lung.
"He did not die instantly, he was writhing on the ground in pain when officers opened up on him," Douglas said.
"You can tell by the audio of the shooting that there were three or four shots, and then a pause, and 15 additional shots."
LASD investigators looking into the fatal shooting said last week that Kizzee picked up a gun he had dropped before two deputies fired 19 rounds.
The independent autopsy was conducted by Dr. John Hiserodt, who found that Kizzee bled to death after blood filled his lungs.
Hiserodt believes Kizzee was shot even as he was moving around -- likely writhing in pain, according to a statement from Douglas.
"The deputies who fired their weapons, called for back-up, and spent several critical minutes waiting for back-up to arrive, while Dijon was bleeding to death in the street," the statement said. "The independent autopsy supports my contention that this shooting was an execution, plain and simple."
Douglas said the incident shows excessive force and that Kizzee was not posing a deadly threat to anyone.
"He was shot 19 times and I can care less what Sheriff Villanueva said seeking to justify that lack of humanity," Douglas said in response. "Nineteen times of firing into a man's body says to me that there's been poor training."
LASD said it had no comment regarding the private autopsy results (Moon 1).
Deputies first attempted to stop Kizzee on August 31 for "riding a bicycle on the wrong side of the road" and "splitting traffic," Wegener said in a news conference last Thursday. Kizzee refused to stop, abandoned his bicycle, and fled on foot with a green towel in one hand and a red and black jacket in the other hand, he said.
Kizzee's 9mm semi-automatic pistol, which was reported stolen in 2017, fell to the ground during the encounter with deputies.
Wegener said Kizzee bent over and reached back to pick up the pistol before deputies fired. The gun was loaded with 15 live rounds.
Benjamin Crump, another attorney representing the Kizzee family, said last week that video footage of the incident contradicts the sheriff's department's findings.
On September 2, Crump posted a grainy cell phone video footage recorded from a house that purportedly shows the deputies pursuing Kizzee. It shows him walking away from the officers before one closes in on him. Kizzee appears to bend over before the deputy backs up rapidly and opens fire (Moon 2).
Two deputies told investigators they fatally shot Kizzee after he picked up the handgun he had dropped during a struggle with one of them, authorities said last week. A video shows him stooping down. But a wall blocks a full view, and no weapon can be seen.
It doesn’t appear the deputies tried to de-escalate the situation before shooting Kizzee. Authorities previously said Kizzee had only “made a motion” toward the gun but recently revised their narrative, saying the deputies have now claimed he had picked it up.
...
Douglas said 19 gunshots show poor police training and a pervasive “warrior mentality” among law enforcement nationwide.
“Until we change that warrior mentality to more of a guardian mentality, there’s going to be more (families) who have lost loved ones,” he said. “There’s a scourge that patrols the county of Los Angeles.”
The attorneys also questioned why the deputies sought to stop Kizzee while he was bicycling, calling it another example of “biking while Black” and racial profiling (Levin 1).
[Snopes,com reported the following]
The sheriff’s department provided no new information about the case, but a department statement said deputies tried to stop Kizzee for riding his bicycle in violation of vehicle codes, without specifying the alleged infraction. Kizzee got off his bike and ran and the deputies briefly lost sight of him, the statement said.
The video shows a police SUV stop in a street. A deputy gets out, runs around a parked car and appears to try to grab Kizzee as he walks down the sidewalk. They tussle, standing, and move down the street together for several seconds. Kissee appears to throw a punch. Police have said he hit the deputy in the face but that’s not clear from the video.
The video then shows Kissee breaking free, stumbling and falling to the ground. A second deputy arrives. Within about 2 seconds, they repeatedly open fire.
Police have not said how many shots the deputies fired. The video obtained by the Times does not have audio, but another video from a front door camera that does not show the shooting captured the sound of about 15 rounds fired.
Kizzee’s relatives have described him as devoted to his late mother and 18-year-old brother. They said he was an energetic man who loved go-karts, cars and music and that he was working toward becoming a plumber.
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, the largest in the nation, does not have body cameras for deputies, though that soon will change. The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved funding and the first group of deputies will be equipped with cameras next month (Associated 1-2).
On Friday, The L.A. County Medical Examiner released the autopsy report of Dijon Kizzee, a 29 year-old man that was fatally shot by L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputies on August 31 in Westmont, CA. Sheriff’s Deputies previously said they fired a total of 19 shots at Kizzee.
An independent autopsy conducted by the family that was released on September 22 found that Kizzee suffered 15 gunshot wounds.
According to the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s report, Kizzee suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head, chest, shoulder, forearm, hand and buttocks. Additionally, Kizzee suffered abrasions to his face, shoulders, arm, right knee and chest. The L.A. County Medical Examiner’s report confirms what the family autopsy already revealed – Kizzee was shot from behind multiple times.
The report was placed on a “security hold” for nearly a month following the fatal shooting of Kizzee, beginning on September 2. On September 22 the department lifted the hold and on October 1 the report was completed,
according to a spokesperson with the L.A. County Medical Examiner. According to the Sheriff’s Department, security holds are used to conceal information from witnesses and deputies involved in shootings.
…
According to Carl Douglas, an attorney for the Kizzee family, Kizzee sustained multiple gunshot wounds while he was unarmed and on the ground. Pointing to a diagram at a September 22 press conference Douglas said, “[Gunshot wounds] E12 and E5 are elongated because Mr. Kizzee was on the ground when those grazing wounds were inflicted.”
The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said that Kizzee was armed with a handgun when he was shot by Sheriff’s deputies during a September 17 press conference. Video evidence however does not show Kizzee pointing a gun at deputies before he was fatally shot (a wall obstructs the view.) And in initial reports, the department said that Kizzee only “made a motion” towards a gun.
The fatal shooting of Kizzee sparked a week of intense demonstrations targeting the South L.A. Sheriff’s Deputy station. Over 30 people were arrested and dozens of protesters and journalists were tear gassed and hit with less-lethal munitions.
On September 27, the family of Dijon Kizzee and community members came together to honor Kizzee, Andres Guardado, Anthony McClain, Ryan Twyman and other victims of police violence. Hundreds of people marched to the South L.A. Sheriff’s Station where they were met by deputies in riot gear. “The sheriff the other day tried to criminalize Westmont, tried to criminalize Dijon by saying that this area was gang territory, that there was gang warfare here.” Ernesto, a lifelong resident of South Central and community organizer, reflected on a press conference held by the Sheriff’s Department earlier in the week.
“Anyone who lives in South Central understands that we don’t fear gang bangers, we fear the police” (Lexis-Olivier 1).
The family of a man who was fatally shot by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies last summer is seeking $35 million in damages from the county.
…
Kizzee's family filed a legal claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, Wednesday against Los Angeles County. The sheriff's department said Thursday that detectives are still investigating the case and declined further comment, citing the pending litigation.
Kizzee's family says the deputies' response was excessive and unnecessary.
"He was no animal," his aunt Fletcher Fair said during an online news conference Thursday. "He didn't deserve to die like that and be alone like that."
The family is being represented by civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Carl Douglas and Dale Galipo. The lawsuit alleges the deputies involved in the shooting were poorly trained, had no reason to stop Kizzee in the first place and that Kizzee was not a threat to the deputies.
"Why all of the shots and why multiple shots when he's unarmed laying on the ground?," attorney Galipo asked during the news conference. "Is that really necessary? Is that what we want our children to see?"
The L.A. County coroner says Kizzee was shot 16 times, with five of the wounds on his back.
Meanwhile, the family says an independent autopsy found Kizzee suffocated when his lungs filled with blood. They blame the deputies for not immediately rendering aid to Kizzee and instead retrieving a shield from a patrol car before trying to help him.
"While Mr. Kizzee's lungs were filling up with blood, they approached him like he was some sort of an animal holding a machine gun and pointing it at them," said Douglas (Hayes 1).
[See the shooting by pasting the following on Google. Then click the “Streets Blog LA” website and scroll half way down the page to gain access to the video]
https://la.streetsblog.org/2020/09/18...
LASD is the largest county police agency in the country and has a long history of brutality scandals, controversial killings, racial profiling and corruption cases. Activists and some local lawmakers have been particularly alarmed at the continued high rate of killings this summer during the pandemic and amid national protests against police brutality.
Sheriff’s deputies have fatally shot at least eight people since the end of May, including Andrés Guardado, an 18-year-old security guard who was fleeing and shot five times in the back, and Michael Thomas, a 61-year-old grandfather who was unarmed and killed inside his home. In one case, deputies killed a man who they said was “walking on the sidewalk”, who they ended up taking to the ground after they saw he had a firearm. In another case, LASD killed a 38-year-old who had reportedly been hit by a train and allegedly approached officers with a knife.
This week, LASD also faced a lawsuit from the family of Eric Briceno, a 39-year-old with a history of mental illness who died after a violent police encounter in March. After his parents called police due to an altercation with their son, deputies entered Briceno’s room as he slept and then beat and shocked him and compressed his neck, according to the family and an autopsy report.
“We called them to come and help us, to get some help,” his mother, Blanca Briceno, told the Los Angeles Times. “And instead, they came and killed him, brutally killed him.”
She said the deputies attacked Briceno without provocation, beating him, using a baton, pepper spray and a Taser, and kneeling on his back. Briceno cried out that he couldn’t breathe, the family’s wrongful death claim alleged.
His mother said she pleaded for deputies to stop and when she took out her phone to record the scene, a deputy took it away and she was pushed out of the room.
The autopsy report said Briceno was shocked with a Taser seven or eight times. It concluded he died of cardiopulmonary arrest resulting from neck compression and restraint with a Taser, the LA Times reported.
The family has called for the deputies to face criminal charges. LASD has declined to comment on the legal claim, citing an ongoing investigation (Levin 2-3).
Works cited:
Associated Press. “New Video Shows Fatal Police Shooting of Black Man in LA.” AP, September 3, 2020. Net. https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/09/02/...
Hayes, Rob. “Dijon Kizzee Case: Family of Man Fatally Shot by Deputies Seeks $35M in Damages from LA County.” ABC7, February 12, 2021. Net. https://abc7.com/dijon-kizzee-protest...
Levin, Sam. “Dijon Kizzee Wasn't Holding Gun When LA Deputies Shot Him 15 Times, Family Attorneys Say.” The Guardian, September 23, 2020. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
Lexis-Olivier, Ray. “Breaking: Official Autopsy Report Confirms that Dijon Kizzee Was Shot from Behind Multiple Times by Sheriffs.” LA Taco, October 2, 2020. Net. https://www.lataco.com/dijon-kizzee-a...
Moon, Sarah. “Independent Autopsy Shows Dijon Kizzee Was Struck 15 Times by LA Sheriff's Deputies, According to Family Attorneys.” CNN, updated September 23, 2020. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/us/pri...
Seven of the shots fired by deputies struck Kizzee on his back side, including arms and hands, said Attorney Carl Douglas. The fatal shot struck Kizzee in a lung.
"He did not die instantly, he was writhing on the ground in pain when officers opened up on him," Douglas said.
"You can tell by the audio of the shooting that there were three or four shots, and then a pause, and 15 additional shots."
LASD investigators looking into the fatal shooting said last week that Kizzee picked up a gun he had dropped before two deputies fired 19 rounds.
The independent autopsy was conducted by Dr. John Hiserodt, who found that Kizzee bled to death after blood filled his lungs.
Hiserodt believes Kizzee was shot even as he was moving around -- likely writhing in pain, according to a statement from Douglas.
"The deputies who fired their weapons, called for back-up, and spent several critical minutes waiting for back-up to arrive, while Dijon was bleeding to death in the street," the statement said. "The independent autopsy supports my contention that this shooting was an execution, plain and simple."
Douglas said the incident shows excessive force and that Kizzee was not posing a deadly threat to anyone.
"He was shot 19 times and I can care less what Sheriff Villanueva said seeking to justify that lack of humanity," Douglas said in response. "Nineteen times of firing into a man's body says to me that there's been poor training."
LASD said it had no comment regarding the private autopsy results (Moon 1).
Deputies first attempted to stop Kizzee on August 31 for "riding a bicycle on the wrong side of the road" and "splitting traffic," Wegener said in a news conference last Thursday. Kizzee refused to stop, abandoned his bicycle, and fled on foot with a green towel in one hand and a red and black jacket in the other hand, he said.
Kizzee's 9mm semi-automatic pistol, which was reported stolen in 2017, fell to the ground during the encounter with deputies.
Wegener said Kizzee bent over and reached back to pick up the pistol before deputies fired. The gun was loaded with 15 live rounds.
Benjamin Crump, another attorney representing the Kizzee family, said last week that video footage of the incident contradicts the sheriff's department's findings.
On September 2, Crump posted a grainy cell phone video footage recorded from a house that purportedly shows the deputies pursuing Kizzee. It shows him walking away from the officers before one closes in on him. Kizzee appears to bend over before the deputy backs up rapidly and opens fire (Moon 2).
Two deputies told investigators they fatally shot Kizzee after he picked up the handgun he had dropped during a struggle with one of them, authorities said last week. A video shows him stooping down. But a wall blocks a full view, and no weapon can be seen.
It doesn’t appear the deputies tried to de-escalate the situation before shooting Kizzee. Authorities previously said Kizzee had only “made a motion” toward the gun but recently revised their narrative, saying the deputies have now claimed he had picked it up.
...
Douglas said 19 gunshots show poor police training and a pervasive “warrior mentality” among law enforcement nationwide.
“Until we change that warrior mentality to more of a guardian mentality, there’s going to be more (families) who have lost loved ones,” he said. “There’s a scourge that patrols the county of Los Angeles.”
The attorneys also questioned why the deputies sought to stop Kizzee while he was bicycling, calling it another example of “biking while Black” and racial profiling (Levin 1).
[Snopes,com reported the following]
The sheriff’s department provided no new information about the case, but a department statement said deputies tried to stop Kizzee for riding his bicycle in violation of vehicle codes, without specifying the alleged infraction. Kizzee got off his bike and ran and the deputies briefly lost sight of him, the statement said.
The video shows a police SUV stop in a street. A deputy gets out, runs around a parked car and appears to try to grab Kizzee as he walks down the sidewalk. They tussle, standing, and move down the street together for several seconds. Kissee appears to throw a punch. Police have said he hit the deputy in the face but that’s not clear from the video.
The video then shows Kissee breaking free, stumbling and falling to the ground. A second deputy arrives. Within about 2 seconds, they repeatedly open fire.
Police have not said how many shots the deputies fired. The video obtained by the Times does not have audio, but another video from a front door camera that does not show the shooting captured the sound of about 15 rounds fired.
Kizzee’s relatives have described him as devoted to his late mother and 18-year-old brother. They said he was an energetic man who loved go-karts, cars and music and that he was working toward becoming a plumber.
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, the largest in the nation, does not have body cameras for deputies, though that soon will change. The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved funding and the first group of deputies will be equipped with cameras next month (Associated 1-2).
On Friday, The L.A. County Medical Examiner released the autopsy report of Dijon Kizzee, a 29 year-old man that was fatally shot by L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputies on August 31 in Westmont, CA. Sheriff’s Deputies previously said they fired a total of 19 shots at Kizzee.
An independent autopsy conducted by the family that was released on September 22 found that Kizzee suffered 15 gunshot wounds.
According to the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s report, Kizzee suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the head, chest, shoulder, forearm, hand and buttocks. Additionally, Kizzee suffered abrasions to his face, shoulders, arm, right knee and chest. The L.A. County Medical Examiner’s report confirms what the family autopsy already revealed – Kizzee was shot from behind multiple times.
The report was placed on a “security hold” for nearly a month following the fatal shooting of Kizzee, beginning on September 2. On September 22 the department lifted the hold and on October 1 the report was completed,
according to a spokesperson with the L.A. County Medical Examiner. According to the Sheriff’s Department, security holds are used to conceal information from witnesses and deputies involved in shootings.
…
According to Carl Douglas, an attorney for the Kizzee family, Kizzee sustained multiple gunshot wounds while he was unarmed and on the ground. Pointing to a diagram at a September 22 press conference Douglas said, “[Gunshot wounds] E12 and E5 are elongated because Mr. Kizzee was on the ground when those grazing wounds were inflicted.”
The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said that Kizzee was armed with a handgun when he was shot by Sheriff’s deputies during a September 17 press conference. Video evidence however does not show Kizzee pointing a gun at deputies before he was fatally shot (a wall obstructs the view.) And in initial reports, the department said that Kizzee only “made a motion” towards a gun.
The fatal shooting of Kizzee sparked a week of intense demonstrations targeting the South L.A. Sheriff’s Deputy station. Over 30 people were arrested and dozens of protesters and journalists were tear gassed and hit with less-lethal munitions.
On September 27, the family of Dijon Kizzee and community members came together to honor Kizzee, Andres Guardado, Anthony McClain, Ryan Twyman and other victims of police violence. Hundreds of people marched to the South L.A. Sheriff’s Station where they were met by deputies in riot gear. “The sheriff the other day tried to criminalize Westmont, tried to criminalize Dijon by saying that this area was gang territory, that there was gang warfare here.” Ernesto, a lifelong resident of South Central and community organizer, reflected on a press conference held by the Sheriff’s Department earlier in the week.
“Anyone who lives in South Central understands that we don’t fear gang bangers, we fear the police” (Lexis-Olivier 1).
The family of a man who was fatally shot by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies last summer is seeking $35 million in damages from the county.
…
Kizzee's family filed a legal claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, Wednesday against Los Angeles County. The sheriff's department said Thursday that detectives are still investigating the case and declined further comment, citing the pending litigation.
Kizzee's family says the deputies' response was excessive and unnecessary.
"He was no animal," his aunt Fletcher Fair said during an online news conference Thursday. "He didn't deserve to die like that and be alone like that."
The family is being represented by civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Carl Douglas and Dale Galipo. The lawsuit alleges the deputies involved in the shooting were poorly trained, had no reason to stop Kizzee in the first place and that Kizzee was not a threat to the deputies.
"Why all of the shots and why multiple shots when he's unarmed laying on the ground?," attorney Galipo asked during the news conference. "Is that really necessary? Is that what we want our children to see?"
The L.A. County coroner says Kizzee was shot 16 times, with five of the wounds on his back.
Meanwhile, the family says an independent autopsy found Kizzee suffocated when his lungs filled with blood. They blame the deputies for not immediately rendering aid to Kizzee and instead retrieving a shield from a patrol car before trying to help him.
"While Mr. Kizzee's lungs were filling up with blood, they approached him like he was some sort of an animal holding a machine gun and pointing it at them," said Douglas (Hayes 1).
[See the shooting by pasting the following on Google. Then click the “Streets Blog LA” website and scroll half way down the page to gain access to the video]
https://la.streetsblog.org/2020/09/18...
LASD is the largest county police agency in the country and has a long history of brutality scandals, controversial killings, racial profiling and corruption cases. Activists and some local lawmakers have been particularly alarmed at the continued high rate of killings this summer during the pandemic and amid national protests against police brutality.
Sheriff’s deputies have fatally shot at least eight people since the end of May, including Andrés Guardado, an 18-year-old security guard who was fleeing and shot five times in the back, and Michael Thomas, a 61-year-old grandfather who was unarmed and killed inside his home. In one case, deputies killed a man who they said was “walking on the sidewalk”, who they ended up taking to the ground after they saw he had a firearm. In another case, LASD killed a 38-year-old who had reportedly been hit by a train and allegedly approached officers with a knife.
This week, LASD also faced a lawsuit from the family of Eric Briceno, a 39-year-old with a history of mental illness who died after a violent police encounter in March. After his parents called police due to an altercation with their son, deputies entered Briceno’s room as he slept and then beat and shocked him and compressed his neck, according to the family and an autopsy report.
“We called them to come and help us, to get some help,” his mother, Blanca Briceno, told the Los Angeles Times. “And instead, they came and killed him, brutally killed him.”
She said the deputies attacked Briceno without provocation, beating him, using a baton, pepper spray and a Taser, and kneeling on his back. Briceno cried out that he couldn’t breathe, the family’s wrongful death claim alleged.
His mother said she pleaded for deputies to stop and when she took out her phone to record the scene, a deputy took it away and she was pushed out of the room.
The autopsy report said Briceno was shocked with a Taser seven or eight times. It concluded he died of cardiopulmonary arrest resulting from neck compression and restraint with a Taser, the LA Times reported.
The family has called for the deputies to face criminal charges. LASD has declined to comment on the legal claim, citing an ongoing investigation (Levin 2-3).
Works cited:
Associated Press. “New Video Shows Fatal Police Shooting of Black Man in LA.” AP, September 3, 2020. Net. https://www.snopes.com/ap/2020/09/02/...
Hayes, Rob. “Dijon Kizzee Case: Family of Man Fatally Shot by Deputies Seeks $35M in Damages from LA County.” ABC7, February 12, 2021. Net. https://abc7.com/dijon-kizzee-protest...
Levin, Sam. “Dijon Kizzee Wasn't Holding Gun When LA Deputies Shot Him 15 Times, Family Attorneys Say.” The Guardian, September 23, 2020. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
Lexis-Olivier, Ray. “Breaking: Official Autopsy Report Confirms that Dijon Kizzee Was Shot from Behind Multiple Times by Sheriffs.” LA Taco, October 2, 2020. Net. https://www.lataco.com/dijon-kizzee-a...
Moon, Sarah. “Independent Autopsy Shows Dijon Kizzee Was Struck 15 Times by LA Sheriff's Deputies, According to Family Attorneys.” CNN, updated September 23, 2020. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/us/pri...
July 22, 2021
Bad Apples -- 08--23--2020--Jacob Blake
Jacob Blake was admitted to the hospital on Sept. 5. He was transferred to a spinal-injury rehabilitation center in October. Mr. Blake’s family has said he is paralyzed from the waist down.
In July, a warrant was issued for Mr. Blake’s arrest on charges of third-degree sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. On Aug. 23, the woman who had filed the complaint that led to those charges called 911 to report that Mr. Blake was at her home, according to interviews and records.
State officials have said that police officers responded to what they described as a domestic complaint and tried to arrest Mr. Blake.
Before the police shot Mr. Blake, officers twice tried to use a Taser on him, state officials said. They also said that Mr. Blake had admitted that he had a knife, which was later found on the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s car. There were no other weapons in the vehicle.
In a statement, the union representing Kenosha police officers suggested that Mr. Blake had forcefully resisted arrest, fought with officers, put one officer in a headlock and ignored orders to drop a knife he held in his left hand.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Blake’s family, denied that Mr. Blake had been carrying a knife and said Mr. Blake had been trying to break up a disturbance involving two women when the police arrived.
A neighbor recorded the shooting with a cellphone. The video shows Mr. Blake being shot seven times in the back in front of his children as he tried to get into his car. (Morales 4).
… The DOJ identified the officer who shot Blake as Rusten Sheskey, who has been with the Kenosha Police Department for seven years. He fired seven shots, and was the only officer to fire his weapon, the DOJ said.
…
Cellphone video taken by a witness on Sunday evening showed three Kenosha police officers following Blake around his SUV, and at least one of them is seen shooting Blake multiple times in the back as he opened the driver's side door and entered the vehicle, where his three young children were still inside.
[Julia] Jackson told ABC News that she has watched the video of her son being shot. She said her son's fiancee, Laquisha Booker, who witnessed the shooting and claimed officers threatened to shoot her, too, has offered to go over details of what she saw.
"We talked ... and I told her I'm not ready to hear the details right now," Jackson said. "I just want to focus on him and the children being better."
Prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the family, told ABC News that family members are calling for the officers involved in the shooting to be terminated from the police force and charged with a crime.
"We believe based on the evidence, based on that video, probable cause exists to arrest and charge the officers with attempted murder," Crump said.
"Where is humanity? Where is the professionalism? Where is the training? Why is it again that we're seeing another African American who the police are supposed to protect and serve like anybody else use this brutal, excessive force?" Crump added. "It was done in front of his three little boys … who were all sitting in the car. Eight years old, five years old, three years old. Can you imagine the psychological issues these babies are going to have" (Mansell, Windsor, Ghebremedhin, Hutchinson, and Deliso 3)?
Mr. Blake, 29, a father of six, grew up in Evanston, Ill., and moved to Kenosha a few years ago to find work and to raise his family, an uncle told The Chicago Tribune.
“It was a safer location,” the uncle, Justin Blake, said. “He could work and try to save and build a better life.”
Mr. Blake’s family said he was working and training to become a mechanic at the time of the shooting (Morales 2).
“Your life — and not only just your life, your legs, something that you need to move around and move forward in life — could be taken from you like this, man,” Mr. Blake says from his hospital bed, snapping his fingers for emphasis, in a video released over the weekend. In the video, he speaks publicly for the first time about what happened to him.
His injuries are severe, and his family says he was paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting last month.
In the video, which was recorded by an activist from New York who distributed it on social media, Mr. Blake describes his injuries, which he says left him with staples in his back and stomach.
“Every 24 hours, it’s pain — it’s nothing but pain,” Mr. Blake says. “It hurts to breathe; it hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat” (Bogel-Burroughs 1).
Protests over Mr. Blake’s shooting played out in the streets of Kenosha, in cities across the country and in the spotlight of professional sports in August. Athletes from the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A., Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer and at the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament refused to play, seizing on the shooting to take a stand against systemic racism and police brutality.
In Kenosha, anger was palpable during the first nights of the protests, as some demonstrators burned buildings and cars and threw fireworks, water bottles and bricks at police officers in riot gear. Officers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Protests spread across the country, to cities including Madison, Wis.; Portland, Ore.; Minneapolis; and New York.
In Kenosha on Aug. 25, two people were fatally shot, and a third was wounded, as protesters clashed with counterprotesters, including a group of armed men who said they were protecting the area from looters.
The two people killed were Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. Mr. Huber’s friends said he was protesting against the shooting of Mr. Blake.
Kyle Rittenhouse, then 17, who is white, was arrested at his home in Illinois and charged with six criminal counts, including first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide, in connection with the shooting deaths of Mr. Rosenbaum and Mr. Huber and the wounding of the third demonstrator.
Mr. Rittenhouse, who is now 18, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief arraignment via videoconference on Jan. 5. His trial is expected to begin in November (Morales 3-4).
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic party nominee for president, said he spoke to Blake's family members on Wednesday.
"What I saw on that video makes me sick," Biden said in a video statement. "Once again, a black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight with the whole world watching. You know -- I spoke to Jacob's mom and dad, sister and other members of the family just a little bit earlier. And I told them justice must and will be done" (Mansel, etc. 5)
…
During an emotional press conference in Kenosha on Tuesday afternoon, where Blake's mother, father and three sisters were in attendance, one of the family's attorneys, Patrick Salvi Jr., said Blake was shot seven times at point-blank range in the back. Salvi said at least one bullet tore through his spinal cord and other shots damaged his kidney, liver and arm.
[Benjamin] Crump, who's also representing Blake, said his client was attempting to de-escalate a domestic incident when police drew their pistols and stun guns on him.
Crump said Blake was walking away to check on his children when police shot him (Mansell, etc. 7).
On Nov. 6, prosecutors in Kenoosha County Circuit Court dropped one count of third-degree sexual assault and agreed to drop one count of criminal trespass if Mr. Blake pleaded guilty to two counts of disorderly conduct, according to court records and Mr. Blake’s lawyer, Patrick Cafferty.
Mr. Blake, who made a virtual court appearance via a video call, pleaded guilty to the two disorderly conduct charges and was sentenced to two years of probation, Mr. Cafferty said.
The Walworth County district attorney, Zeke Wiedenfeld, who had prosecuted the case, said the sexual assault charge had been dropped in part because the woman who had accused Mr. Blake was not cooperating with the prosecution.
Mr. Blake had maintained that he did not commit sexual assault, and by dropping the charge, Mr. Cafferty said, prosecutors acknowledged that “ultimately, the state could not prove it in court.”
Mr. Cafferty said the resolution of the case would not affect the Justice Department’s investigation into the shooting of Mr. Blake.
On Jan. 5, [Kenosha County District Attorney Michael] Graveley announced that charges would not be brought against Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Mr. Blake.
The prosecutor concluded that a case against Officer Sheskey would have been hard to prove. He said it would be difficult to disprove an argument that the officer was protecting himself from Mr. Blake, who Mr. Graveley said had admitted holding a knife.
Mr. Crump reacted on Twitter, writing, “We are immensely disappointed and feel this decision failed not only Jacob and his family but the community that protested and demanded justice” (Morales 6-7).
Following Tuesday night's win over the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers discussed why unarmed Black men continued to be shot by police.
"What stands out to me is, just watching the Republican convention, they are spewing this fear. All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear. We're the ones getting killed," Rivers said, speaking with reporters after the game. "We're the ones getting shot. We're the ones that were denied to live in certain communities. We've been hung, we've been shot, and all you do is keep hearing about fear."
"It's amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back," he said, fighting back tears. … (Mansell etc. 9-10).
Kenosha, Wis., police said Tuesday that Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake last summer, has been found to have acted within the law and department policy.
…
Chief Daniel Miskinis said the use-of-force incident had been investigated by an outside agency and reviewed by independent experts.
The Kenosha County District Attorney's Office announced in January that no charges would be brought against Sheskey.
"He acted within the law and was consistent with training," Miskinis said in a statement Tuesday. "This incident was also reviewed internally. Officer Sheskey was found to have been acting within policy and will not be subjected to discipline."
Sheskey is now back on the job, having returned from administrative leave on March 31, [2021] Miskinis said.
Miskinis said he recognizes that "some will not be pleased with the outcome; however, given the facts, the only lawful and appropriate decision was made."
Blake filed a lawsuit in March against Sheskey alleging the use of excessive force (Wamsley 1).
The lawsuit, which only names Kenosha, Wisconsin, Officer Rusten Sheskey as a defendant, argues that the shooting "was undertaken with malice, willfulness, and reckless indifference to the rights" of Blake.
… The lawsuit notes that Blake "has suffered and will continue to suffer physical and emotional damages."
CNN has reached out to Sheskey and the Kenosha Police Department for comment but did not immediately hear back.
The suit asks for damages "in a fair and just amount sufficient to compensate [Blake] for the injuries he has suffered, plus a substantial sum in punitive damages."
…
CNN reported that Sheskey told investigators shortly after the incident that he used deadly force during the chaotic encounter because he was afraid Blake, while attempting to flee the scene, was trying to kidnap a child in the backseat of the vehicle he was driving (Toropin and Huynh 1).
[Paste the following on Google to see TV coverage and a video of the shooting]
No charges filed against officers in shooting of Jacob Blake l …
[Paste the following to see and hear Jacob Blake relate what happened to him during an interview with ABC]
Jacob Blake speaks out about shooting, decision not to ...
[You may also watch a video produced by ABC News detailing the activities of Kyle Rittenhouse. Paste the following on Google]
Video: Kenosha shooting timeline: Tracking Kyle Rittenhouse
Works cited:
Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas. “Jacob Blake, Rare Survivor at Center of Police Protests, Starts Telling His Own Story.” The New York Times, updated January 5, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/us...
Mansell, William; Winsor, Morgan; Ghebremedhin, Sabrina; Hutchinson, Bill and Deliso, Meredith. “Authorities Identify Kenosha Cop Who Shot Jacob Blake, Say Blake Had Knife.” ABC News, August 26, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/shots-fired...
Morales, Christina. “What We Know about the Shooting of Jacob Blake.” The New York Times, March 26, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/article/jacob...
Toropin, Konstantin and Huynh, Anjali. “Jacob Blake Has Filed an Excessive Force Lawsuit against the Kenosha Police Officer Who Shot Him.” CNN, March 26, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/us/jac...
Wamsley, Laurel. “Rusten Sheskey, Kenosha Officer Who Shot Jacob Blake, Will Not Face Discipline.” NPR, April 13, 2021. Net. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/986971...
In July, a warrant was issued for Mr. Blake’s arrest on charges of third-degree sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. On Aug. 23, the woman who had filed the complaint that led to those charges called 911 to report that Mr. Blake was at her home, according to interviews and records.
State officials have said that police officers responded to what they described as a domestic complaint and tried to arrest Mr. Blake.
Before the police shot Mr. Blake, officers twice tried to use a Taser on him, state officials said. They also said that Mr. Blake had admitted that he had a knife, which was later found on the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s car. There were no other weapons in the vehicle.
In a statement, the union representing Kenosha police officers suggested that Mr. Blake had forcefully resisted arrest, fought with officers, put one officer in a headlock and ignored orders to drop a knife he held in his left hand.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Blake’s family, denied that Mr. Blake had been carrying a knife and said Mr. Blake had been trying to break up a disturbance involving two women when the police arrived.
A neighbor recorded the shooting with a cellphone. The video shows Mr. Blake being shot seven times in the back in front of his children as he tried to get into his car. (Morales 4).
… The DOJ identified the officer who shot Blake as Rusten Sheskey, who has been with the Kenosha Police Department for seven years. He fired seven shots, and was the only officer to fire his weapon, the DOJ said.
…
Cellphone video taken by a witness on Sunday evening showed three Kenosha police officers following Blake around his SUV, and at least one of them is seen shooting Blake multiple times in the back as he opened the driver's side door and entered the vehicle, where his three young children were still inside.
[Julia] Jackson told ABC News that she has watched the video of her son being shot. She said her son's fiancee, Laquisha Booker, who witnessed the shooting and claimed officers threatened to shoot her, too, has offered to go over details of what she saw.
"We talked ... and I told her I'm not ready to hear the details right now," Jackson said. "I just want to focus on him and the children being better."
Prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the family, told ABC News that family members are calling for the officers involved in the shooting to be terminated from the police force and charged with a crime.
"We believe based on the evidence, based on that video, probable cause exists to arrest and charge the officers with attempted murder," Crump said.
"Where is humanity? Where is the professionalism? Where is the training? Why is it again that we're seeing another African American who the police are supposed to protect and serve like anybody else use this brutal, excessive force?" Crump added. "It was done in front of his three little boys … who were all sitting in the car. Eight years old, five years old, three years old. Can you imagine the psychological issues these babies are going to have" (Mansell, Windsor, Ghebremedhin, Hutchinson, and Deliso 3)?
Mr. Blake, 29, a father of six, grew up in Evanston, Ill., and moved to Kenosha a few years ago to find work and to raise his family, an uncle told The Chicago Tribune.
“It was a safer location,” the uncle, Justin Blake, said. “He could work and try to save and build a better life.”
Mr. Blake’s family said he was working and training to become a mechanic at the time of the shooting (Morales 2).
“Your life — and not only just your life, your legs, something that you need to move around and move forward in life — could be taken from you like this, man,” Mr. Blake says from his hospital bed, snapping his fingers for emphasis, in a video released over the weekend. In the video, he speaks publicly for the first time about what happened to him.
His injuries are severe, and his family says he was paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting last month.
In the video, which was recorded by an activist from New York who distributed it on social media, Mr. Blake describes his injuries, which he says left him with staples in his back and stomach.
“Every 24 hours, it’s pain — it’s nothing but pain,” Mr. Blake says. “It hurts to breathe; it hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat” (Bogel-Burroughs 1).
Protests over Mr. Blake’s shooting played out in the streets of Kenosha, in cities across the country and in the spotlight of professional sports in August. Athletes from the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A., Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer and at the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament refused to play, seizing on the shooting to take a stand against systemic racism and police brutality.
In Kenosha, anger was palpable during the first nights of the protests, as some demonstrators burned buildings and cars and threw fireworks, water bottles and bricks at police officers in riot gear. Officers responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Protests spread across the country, to cities including Madison, Wis.; Portland, Ore.; Minneapolis; and New York.
In Kenosha on Aug. 25, two people were fatally shot, and a third was wounded, as protesters clashed with counterprotesters, including a group of armed men who said they were protecting the area from looters.
The two people killed were Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26. Mr. Huber’s friends said he was protesting against the shooting of Mr. Blake.
Kyle Rittenhouse, then 17, who is white, was arrested at his home in Illinois and charged with six criminal counts, including first-degree reckless homicide, first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide, in connection with the shooting deaths of Mr. Rosenbaum and Mr. Huber and the wounding of the third demonstrator.
Mr. Rittenhouse, who is now 18, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief arraignment via videoconference on Jan. 5. His trial is expected to begin in November (Morales 3-4).
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic party nominee for president, said he spoke to Blake's family members on Wednesday.
"What I saw on that video makes me sick," Biden said in a video statement. "Once again, a black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight with the whole world watching. You know -- I spoke to Jacob's mom and dad, sister and other members of the family just a little bit earlier. And I told them justice must and will be done" (Mansel, etc. 5)
…
During an emotional press conference in Kenosha on Tuesday afternoon, where Blake's mother, father and three sisters were in attendance, one of the family's attorneys, Patrick Salvi Jr., said Blake was shot seven times at point-blank range in the back. Salvi said at least one bullet tore through his spinal cord and other shots damaged his kidney, liver and arm.
[Benjamin] Crump, who's also representing Blake, said his client was attempting to de-escalate a domestic incident when police drew their pistols and stun guns on him.
Crump said Blake was walking away to check on his children when police shot him (Mansell, etc. 7).
On Nov. 6, prosecutors in Kenoosha County Circuit Court dropped one count of third-degree sexual assault and agreed to drop one count of criminal trespass if Mr. Blake pleaded guilty to two counts of disorderly conduct, according to court records and Mr. Blake’s lawyer, Patrick Cafferty.
Mr. Blake, who made a virtual court appearance via a video call, pleaded guilty to the two disorderly conduct charges and was sentenced to two years of probation, Mr. Cafferty said.
The Walworth County district attorney, Zeke Wiedenfeld, who had prosecuted the case, said the sexual assault charge had been dropped in part because the woman who had accused Mr. Blake was not cooperating with the prosecution.
Mr. Blake had maintained that he did not commit sexual assault, and by dropping the charge, Mr. Cafferty said, prosecutors acknowledged that “ultimately, the state could not prove it in court.”
Mr. Cafferty said the resolution of the case would not affect the Justice Department’s investigation into the shooting of Mr. Blake.
On Jan. 5, [Kenosha County District Attorney Michael] Graveley announced that charges would not be brought against Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Mr. Blake.
The prosecutor concluded that a case against Officer Sheskey would have been hard to prove. He said it would be difficult to disprove an argument that the officer was protecting himself from Mr. Blake, who Mr. Graveley said had admitted holding a knife.
Mr. Crump reacted on Twitter, writing, “We are immensely disappointed and feel this decision failed not only Jacob and his family but the community that protested and demanded justice” (Morales 6-7).
Following Tuesday night's win over the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers discussed why unarmed Black men continued to be shot by police.
"What stands out to me is, just watching the Republican convention, they are spewing this fear. All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear. We're the ones getting killed," Rivers said, speaking with reporters after the game. "We're the ones getting shot. We're the ones that were denied to live in certain communities. We've been hung, we've been shot, and all you do is keep hearing about fear."
"It's amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back," he said, fighting back tears. … (Mansell etc. 9-10).
Kenosha, Wis., police said Tuesday that Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake last summer, has been found to have acted within the law and department policy.
…
Chief Daniel Miskinis said the use-of-force incident had been investigated by an outside agency and reviewed by independent experts.
The Kenosha County District Attorney's Office announced in January that no charges would be brought against Sheskey.
"He acted within the law and was consistent with training," Miskinis said in a statement Tuesday. "This incident was also reviewed internally. Officer Sheskey was found to have been acting within policy and will not be subjected to discipline."
Sheskey is now back on the job, having returned from administrative leave on March 31, [2021] Miskinis said.
Miskinis said he recognizes that "some will not be pleased with the outcome; however, given the facts, the only lawful and appropriate decision was made."
Blake filed a lawsuit in March against Sheskey alleging the use of excessive force (Wamsley 1).
The lawsuit, which only names Kenosha, Wisconsin, Officer Rusten Sheskey as a defendant, argues that the shooting "was undertaken with malice, willfulness, and reckless indifference to the rights" of Blake.
… The lawsuit notes that Blake "has suffered and will continue to suffer physical and emotional damages."
CNN has reached out to Sheskey and the Kenosha Police Department for comment but did not immediately hear back.
The suit asks for damages "in a fair and just amount sufficient to compensate [Blake] for the injuries he has suffered, plus a substantial sum in punitive damages."
…
CNN reported that Sheskey told investigators shortly after the incident that he used deadly force during the chaotic encounter because he was afraid Blake, while attempting to flee the scene, was trying to kidnap a child in the backseat of the vehicle he was driving (Toropin and Huynh 1).
[Paste the following on Google to see TV coverage and a video of the shooting]
No charges filed against officers in shooting of Jacob Blake l …
[Paste the following to see and hear Jacob Blake relate what happened to him during an interview with ABC]
Jacob Blake speaks out about shooting, decision not to ...
[You may also watch a video produced by ABC News detailing the activities of Kyle Rittenhouse. Paste the following on Google]
Video: Kenosha shooting timeline: Tracking Kyle Rittenhouse
Works cited:
Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas. “Jacob Blake, Rare Survivor at Center of Police Protests, Starts Telling His Own Story.” The New York Times, updated January 5, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/us...
Mansell, William; Winsor, Morgan; Ghebremedhin, Sabrina; Hutchinson, Bill and Deliso, Meredith. “Authorities Identify Kenosha Cop Who Shot Jacob Blake, Say Blake Had Knife.” ABC News, August 26, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/shots-fired...
Morales, Christina. “What We Know about the Shooting of Jacob Blake.” The New York Times, March 26, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/article/jacob...
Toropin, Konstantin and Huynh, Anjali. “Jacob Blake Has Filed an Excessive Force Lawsuit against the Kenosha Police Officer Who Shot Him.” CNN, March 26, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/us/jac...
Wamsley, Laurel. “Rusten Sheskey, Kenosha Officer Who Shot Jacob Blake, Will Not Face Discipline.” NPR, April 13, 2021. Net. https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/986971...
July 18, 2021
Bad Apples --- June 12, 2020 -- Rayshard Brooks
The Atlanta Police Department said early Sunday that an officer had been fired over the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks, 27, at a Wendy’s restaurant. The officer, Garrett Rolfe, who had worked with the department since 2013, fired his handgun three times while he was chasing Mr. Brooks, who the authorities said had seized a Taser from an officer and fired it as he ran. Another officer on the scene, Devin Brosnan, who has been with the department for less than two years, was placed on administrative duty.
The Times analyzed eyewitness videos, police bodycam footage and security camera footage of the events to determine what happened in the minutes preceding Mr. Brooks’s death. We synchronized the footage to hear what happened and determine precisely when Officer Rolfe fired his gun, and we reviewed other details of the shooting released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
…
At 10:33 p.m. on Friday, police officers were called to a Wendy’s restaurant at 125 University Avenue in South Atlanta. Mr. Brooks had fallen asleep in his vehicle, which was parked in the drive-through, causing other customers to drive around him, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.
10:42 p.m. Officer Brosnan arrives and wakes Mr. Brooks.
Officer Brosnan says: “All right, you good? Just pull in somewhere and take a n … All right, you good?” Mr. Brooks parks in a nearby car space.
Officer Brosnan appears to be unsure whether he should let Mr. Brooks sleep in the car or should take further action.
At10:49 p.m., he contacts police dispatch and requests another police officer.
10:56 p.m. Officer Rolfe arrives and consults with Officer Brosnan. Officer Rolfe questions Mr. Brooks, who says he didn’t drive to Wendy’s but was dropped off. Officer Rolfe rejects the statement.
11:03 p.m. Officer Rolfe checks whether Mr. Brooks is armed. He is not.
11:04 p.m. Officer Rolfe performs a sobriety test on Mr. Brooks over the next seven minutes. Mr. Brooks is compliant and friendly with the officers throughout this time. He says he is not too drunk to drive.
Officer Rolfe asks Mr. Brooks to take a breath test for alcohol. Mr. Brooks admits he has been drinking and says, “I don’t want to refuse anything.”
Mr. Brooks asks the officers if he can lock his car up under their supervision and walk to his sister’s house, which he says is a short distance away. “I can just go home,” he says.
11:23 p.m. The two officers have been at the scene for 27 minutes. When the breath test is complete, Officer Rolfe tells Mr. Brooks he “has had too much drink to be driving,” and begins to handcuff him. Less than a minute later, Mr. Brooks is shot.
Police footage and video filmed by a witness, Tiachelle Brown, shows Mr. Brooks grappling with the officers on the ground. Officer Rolfe says, “Stop that. Stop fighting, stop fighting,” and Officer Brosnan shouts, “You’re going to get Tased.”
Mr. Brooks says “Mr. Rolfe, come on man. Mr. Rolfe.” He seizes a Taser from Officer Brosnan, stands up and punches Officer Rolfe. Officer Rolfe fires his Taser gun. The darts hit Mr. Brooks, and Officer Rolfe continues trying to stun him.
Mr. Brooks runs away, holding Officer Brosnan’s Taser gun. Officer Rolfe gives chase, and continues to try to stun Mr. Brooks.
The security camera footage filmed at Wendy’s shows Officer Rolfe chasing Mr. Brooks. In seconds, Officer Rolfe passes his Taser from his right hand to his left hand, and reaches for his handgun.
While being chased, and in full stride, Mr. Brooks looks behind him, points the Taser he is holding in Officer Rolfe’s direction, and fires it. The flash of the Taser suggests that Mr. Brooks did not fire it with any real accuracy.
Officer Rolfe discards the Taser he is carrying, draws his handgun and fires it three times at Mr. Brooks as he is running away. Mr. Brooks falls to the ground.
11:23 p.m. For the next minute, Officer Rolfe and Officer Brosnan stand over Mr. Brooks, who is injured but moving on the ground, and occasionally reach down to him. Officer Brosnan appears to use his radio. Neither officer appears to provide medical assistance to Mr. Brooks. Another police car arrives at the scene.
11:24 p.m. Another video shows Officer Rolfe running back to his S.U.V. and calling for help over his radio. Bystanders denounce the shooting to a third police officer who is at the scene.
11:25 p.m. Officer Rolfe and Officer Brosnan begin to provide medical assistance. Officer Rolfe appears to unroll a bandage and place it on Mr. Brooks’s torso.
11:30 p.m. An ambulance arrives. Eight minutes later, Mr. Brooks is taken to a hospital, where he dies after surgery (Browne, Kelso, and Marcolini 1-4).
[Paste the following on Google to watch a well researched New York Times video of this event]
The Killing of Rayshard Brooks: How a 41-Minute Police ...
Rayshard Brooks' wife Tomika Miller worried about Brooks' safety after other unarmed Black men, such as George Floyd, were killed by police.
Miller said Brooks was often profiled by police because he had tattoos on his face.
“I’ve always said, 'Baby, I don’t ever want that to be you,'" Miller said during an emotional press conference with Brooks' family Monday.
"And he was always like 'no, it's going to change, it's going to change.' He always tried to stay positive about everything."
On Friday, Miller's fears became a reality.
…
Family members remembered Brooks as a loving father of three daughters, ages 8, 2 and 1, and a 13-year-old step son.
He took his daughter Blessing to get her nails done and pick up something to eat in celebration of her eighth birthday hours before he was killed.
The following day, Blessing had a birthday party with cupcakes and put on a special birthday dress, anticipating that her father was taking her skating.
"Blessing, Memory and Dream will never get to see their father again," Brooks' niece Chassidy Evans said Monday. “Not only was he a girl dad, loving husband, caring brother, and most importantly to me, my uncle I could depend on. Rayshard Brooks was silly, he had the brightest smile, and biggest heart and loved to dance since we were kids.”
His first cousin Gymaco Brooks said he had seen Rayshard just a week and a half ago when he stopped by while Gymaco played chess with Brooks' older brother.
Gymaco said they all caught up and shared a few laughs and drinks.
“He was always happy, he was always smiling,” Gymaco Brooks said. “Life shouldn’t be this complicated. Life shouldn’t be where we have to feel some type of way if we see a police or somebody of a different color.”
Family attorney, L. Chris Stewart, said the officer who shot Brooks should be charged for “an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder.”
Stewart said attorneys were with the family Saturday and watched the children "play and laugh and be oblivious to the facts that their dad was murdered."
“You can’t have it both ways in law enforcement,” Stewart said. “You can’t say a Taser is a nonlethal weapon … but when an African American grabs it and runs with it, now it’s some kind of deadly, lethal weapon that calls for you to unload on somebody.”
…
Crystal Brooks, who said she is Rayshard Brooks' sister-in-law, joined protesters outside the Atlanta Wendy's on Saturday night.
…
Miller pleaded for the public to peacefully protest. Meanwhile she grieves the loss of the man she says was her best friend.
“I can never tell my daughter 'Oh, he’s coming to take you skating or swimming lessons,'" Miller said. “It’s going to be a long time before I heal. It’s going to be a long time before this family heals” (Ellis 1-3).
Rayshard Brooks's life was one that was dedicated to hard work and his family, according to those who knew him.
The 27-year-old spent most of his life in the Atlanta area with several siblings and cousins. He married Tomika Miller eight years ago and they had three children: Blessing, 8, Memory, 2, and Dream, 1. Brooks also had a 13-year-old stepson, Mekai.
Brooks worked many jobs and in the spring of 2019 he landed in Toledo, Ohio, a former employer told ABC News. Ambrea Mikolajczyk, co-owner of Ark Restoration, said one of her employees recommended Brooks and he quickly proved himself a hard-working member of their small team.
From carpentry to flooring, Brooks helped restore old homes and other properties with huge enthusiasm, according to Mikolajczyk. She noted that even though he didn't have a car, he was always the first person to show up to work every morning.
"I remember him saying, 'My name is Ray Brooks. I work hard. I can do whatever you need me to do if you just show me how to do it.' And that's what he did," Mikolajczyk told ABC News.
Brooks was living in Toledo to help take care of his father, who had had a heart transplant, according to Mikolajczyk. She was in touch with Brooks' father over the last few days and she said the two spent their time recollecting and strengthening their bond.
"I just talked to his father. He said they were doing a lot of firsts when [Ray] was here," Mikolajczyk said. "He had taken him fishing. He had never seen snow, so when it snowed they went sledding."
Brooks left the company and Toledo in December to go back to his family in Atlanta, but indicated that he was going to return after "getting some ducks in order," according to Mikolajczyk.
She said he kept in touch with a lot of the Ark Restoration team over the last couple of months and talked highly of his family.
"He was an amazing individual. He took care of his family and friends," Mikolajczyk said (Pereira 1-2).
Those who knew him remembered Mr. Brooks, 27, as a caring father and a dancer more distinguished by enthusiasm than ability. His mother-in-law, Rochelle Gooden, said he had loved old rhythm-and-blues songs and liked to barbecue.
“He always took me as Mom, and I always took him as Son,” she said. “I never called him Rayshard, I called him my son.”
At his funeral, the Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, said Mr. Brooks “wasn’t just running from the police.” (Mr. Warnock was later elected to the U.S. Senate.)
“He was running from a system that makes slaves out of people,” Mr. Warnock said. “This is much bigger than the police. This is about a whole system that cries out for renewal and reform.”
…
Mr. Brooks was 18 feet 3 inches away when the first shot was fired. Prosecutors said that as Mr. Brooks lay dying, Officer Rolfe kicked his bleeding body and the other officer, Devin Brosnan, stood on his shoulder. The officers, both of whom are white, failed to render aid for more than two minutes, prosecutors said.
In a rare move, officials acted quickly after Mr. Brooks’s death, firing Mr. Rolfe, the officer who shot Mr. Brooks, and charging him with murder and aggravated assault. At a news conference announcing the charges against Mr. Rolfe, prosecutors said that the officer declared, “I got him,” after firing the fatal shots at Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Rolfe faces 11 counts, including murder, and Mr. Brosnan faces three counts, including aggravated assault.
In August, Mr. Rolfe sued the mayor of Atlanta and the interim police chief over his dismissal from the police force, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The prosecutor who filed the charges against Mr. Rolfe was voted out of office in November, and his successor in late January formally asked the state attorney general to transfer the case against Mr. Rolfe to another county, arguing that her predecessor’s “conduct made it impossible” to prosecute. The request was denied in early February (Ortiz 1-3).
The Atlanta police chief, Erika Shields, resigned shortly after Mr. Brooks’s death, but her department had been rattled by other recent controversies. On May 30, less than two weeks before the killing of Mr. Brooks,
Ms. Shields fired two officers who used a Taser on two college students and dragged them from their car during a George Floyd protest.
In January [2021], Ms. Shields was hired as police chief of Louisville, a city rife with racial tension that ballooned after Louisville police officers shot Breanna Taylor during a botched raid on her apartment in March.
In addition to Ms. Shields’s resignation and charges against the officers involved, the killing of Mr. Brooks also inspired weeks of protests and unrest in Atlanta as well as across the nation (Ortiz 4).
Garrett Rolfe, the Atlanta police officer who was fired from his job after fatally shooting a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, in a fast-food parking lot, was reinstated on Wednesday by the city’s Civil Service Board, which found that Officer Rolfe’s firing violated his due process rights.
Officer Rolfe was terminated one day after the shooting, which came a few weeks after the police killing of another Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis. The killing of Mr. Brooks led to a new round of demonstrations across the United States, including in Atlanta.
Though reinstated to his job, Officer Rolfe is being placed on administrative leave until the resolution of murder and aggravated assault charges he faces for the June 12 shooting, according to a city news release. Though criminally charged, Officer Rolfe has not yet been indicted, a step needed for the case to move forward. …
…
The decision by the Civil Service Board to reinstate Officer Rolfe turned not on whether the shooting was justified, but on whether the city had followed proper procedures when firing him. …
…
… in its written order on Wednesday, the board noted that Officer Rolfe was not afforded the opportunity to adequately respond to the city’s notice that it intended to fire him. The decision cited the testimony of Sgt. William Dean of the Atlanta police’s internal affairs division, who said that the firing “seemed rushed.”
…
In a statement, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defended the city’s move to fire Officer Rolfe so quickly, given the level of anger and pain in the streets of Atlanta, a majority African-American city.
“Given the volatile state of our city and nation last summer, the decision to terminate this officer, after he fatally shot Mr. Brooks in the back, was the right thing to do,” Ms. Bottoms said. “Had immediate action not been taken, I firmly believe that the public safety crisis we experienced during that time would have been significantly worse” (Fausset 1-2).
Works cited:
Browne, Malachy, Kelso, Christina, and Marcolini, Barbara. “How Rayshard Brooks Was Fatally Shot by the Atlanta Police.” The New York Times, updated May 5, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us...
Ellis, Nicquel Terry. “'Baby, I Don't Want That To Be You': Rayshard Brooks' Wife Feared for His Safety.” USA Today, updated June 15, 2020. Net. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...
Fausset, Richard. “Atlanta Officer Who Fatally Shot Rayshard Brooks Is Reinstated.” The New York Times, May 5, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/us...
Ortiz, Aimee. “What To Know about the Death of Rayshard Brooks.” The New York Times, May 6, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/article/raysh...
Pereira, Ivan. “Rayshard Brooks Remembered for Hard Work and Dedication to Family.” ABC News, June 15, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/rayshard-br....
The Times analyzed eyewitness videos, police bodycam footage and security camera footage of the events to determine what happened in the minutes preceding Mr. Brooks’s death. We synchronized the footage to hear what happened and determine precisely when Officer Rolfe fired his gun, and we reviewed other details of the shooting released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
…
At 10:33 p.m. on Friday, police officers were called to a Wendy’s restaurant at 125 University Avenue in South Atlanta. Mr. Brooks had fallen asleep in his vehicle, which was parked in the drive-through, causing other customers to drive around him, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.
10:42 p.m. Officer Brosnan arrives and wakes Mr. Brooks.
Officer Brosnan says: “All right, you good? Just pull in somewhere and take a n … All right, you good?” Mr. Brooks parks in a nearby car space.
Officer Brosnan appears to be unsure whether he should let Mr. Brooks sleep in the car or should take further action.
At10:49 p.m., he contacts police dispatch and requests another police officer.
10:56 p.m. Officer Rolfe arrives and consults with Officer Brosnan. Officer Rolfe questions Mr. Brooks, who says he didn’t drive to Wendy’s but was dropped off. Officer Rolfe rejects the statement.
11:03 p.m. Officer Rolfe checks whether Mr. Brooks is armed. He is not.
11:04 p.m. Officer Rolfe performs a sobriety test on Mr. Brooks over the next seven minutes. Mr. Brooks is compliant and friendly with the officers throughout this time. He says he is not too drunk to drive.
Officer Rolfe asks Mr. Brooks to take a breath test for alcohol. Mr. Brooks admits he has been drinking and says, “I don’t want to refuse anything.”
Mr. Brooks asks the officers if he can lock his car up under their supervision and walk to his sister’s house, which he says is a short distance away. “I can just go home,” he says.
11:23 p.m. The two officers have been at the scene for 27 minutes. When the breath test is complete, Officer Rolfe tells Mr. Brooks he “has had too much drink to be driving,” and begins to handcuff him. Less than a minute later, Mr. Brooks is shot.
Police footage and video filmed by a witness, Tiachelle Brown, shows Mr. Brooks grappling with the officers on the ground. Officer Rolfe says, “Stop that. Stop fighting, stop fighting,” and Officer Brosnan shouts, “You’re going to get Tased.”
Mr. Brooks says “Mr. Rolfe, come on man. Mr. Rolfe.” He seizes a Taser from Officer Brosnan, stands up and punches Officer Rolfe. Officer Rolfe fires his Taser gun. The darts hit Mr. Brooks, and Officer Rolfe continues trying to stun him.
Mr. Brooks runs away, holding Officer Brosnan’s Taser gun. Officer Rolfe gives chase, and continues to try to stun Mr. Brooks.
The security camera footage filmed at Wendy’s shows Officer Rolfe chasing Mr. Brooks. In seconds, Officer Rolfe passes his Taser from his right hand to his left hand, and reaches for his handgun.
While being chased, and in full stride, Mr. Brooks looks behind him, points the Taser he is holding in Officer Rolfe’s direction, and fires it. The flash of the Taser suggests that Mr. Brooks did not fire it with any real accuracy.
Officer Rolfe discards the Taser he is carrying, draws his handgun and fires it three times at Mr. Brooks as he is running away. Mr. Brooks falls to the ground.
11:23 p.m. For the next minute, Officer Rolfe and Officer Brosnan stand over Mr. Brooks, who is injured but moving on the ground, and occasionally reach down to him. Officer Brosnan appears to use his radio. Neither officer appears to provide medical assistance to Mr. Brooks. Another police car arrives at the scene.
11:24 p.m. Another video shows Officer Rolfe running back to his S.U.V. and calling for help over his radio. Bystanders denounce the shooting to a third police officer who is at the scene.
11:25 p.m. Officer Rolfe and Officer Brosnan begin to provide medical assistance. Officer Rolfe appears to unroll a bandage and place it on Mr. Brooks’s torso.
11:30 p.m. An ambulance arrives. Eight minutes later, Mr. Brooks is taken to a hospital, where he dies after surgery (Browne, Kelso, and Marcolini 1-4).
[Paste the following on Google to watch a well researched New York Times video of this event]
The Killing of Rayshard Brooks: How a 41-Minute Police ...
Rayshard Brooks' wife Tomika Miller worried about Brooks' safety after other unarmed Black men, such as George Floyd, were killed by police.
Miller said Brooks was often profiled by police because he had tattoos on his face.
“I’ve always said, 'Baby, I don’t ever want that to be you,'" Miller said during an emotional press conference with Brooks' family Monday.
"And he was always like 'no, it's going to change, it's going to change.' He always tried to stay positive about everything."
On Friday, Miller's fears became a reality.
…
Family members remembered Brooks as a loving father of three daughters, ages 8, 2 and 1, and a 13-year-old step son.
He took his daughter Blessing to get her nails done and pick up something to eat in celebration of her eighth birthday hours before he was killed.
The following day, Blessing had a birthday party with cupcakes and put on a special birthday dress, anticipating that her father was taking her skating.
"Blessing, Memory and Dream will never get to see their father again," Brooks' niece Chassidy Evans said Monday. “Not only was he a girl dad, loving husband, caring brother, and most importantly to me, my uncle I could depend on. Rayshard Brooks was silly, he had the brightest smile, and biggest heart and loved to dance since we were kids.”
His first cousin Gymaco Brooks said he had seen Rayshard just a week and a half ago when he stopped by while Gymaco played chess with Brooks' older brother.
Gymaco said they all caught up and shared a few laughs and drinks.
“He was always happy, he was always smiling,” Gymaco Brooks said. “Life shouldn’t be this complicated. Life shouldn’t be where we have to feel some type of way if we see a police or somebody of a different color.”
Family attorney, L. Chris Stewart, said the officer who shot Brooks should be charged for “an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder.”
Stewart said attorneys were with the family Saturday and watched the children "play and laugh and be oblivious to the facts that their dad was murdered."
“You can’t have it both ways in law enforcement,” Stewart said. “You can’t say a Taser is a nonlethal weapon … but when an African American grabs it and runs with it, now it’s some kind of deadly, lethal weapon that calls for you to unload on somebody.”
…
Crystal Brooks, who said she is Rayshard Brooks' sister-in-law, joined protesters outside the Atlanta Wendy's on Saturday night.
…
Miller pleaded for the public to peacefully protest. Meanwhile she grieves the loss of the man she says was her best friend.
“I can never tell my daughter 'Oh, he’s coming to take you skating or swimming lessons,'" Miller said. “It’s going to be a long time before I heal. It’s going to be a long time before this family heals” (Ellis 1-3).
Rayshard Brooks's life was one that was dedicated to hard work and his family, according to those who knew him.
The 27-year-old spent most of his life in the Atlanta area with several siblings and cousins. He married Tomika Miller eight years ago and they had three children: Blessing, 8, Memory, 2, and Dream, 1. Brooks also had a 13-year-old stepson, Mekai.
Brooks worked many jobs and in the spring of 2019 he landed in Toledo, Ohio, a former employer told ABC News. Ambrea Mikolajczyk, co-owner of Ark Restoration, said one of her employees recommended Brooks and he quickly proved himself a hard-working member of their small team.
From carpentry to flooring, Brooks helped restore old homes and other properties with huge enthusiasm, according to Mikolajczyk. She noted that even though he didn't have a car, he was always the first person to show up to work every morning.
"I remember him saying, 'My name is Ray Brooks. I work hard. I can do whatever you need me to do if you just show me how to do it.' And that's what he did," Mikolajczyk told ABC News.
Brooks was living in Toledo to help take care of his father, who had had a heart transplant, according to Mikolajczyk. She was in touch with Brooks' father over the last few days and she said the two spent their time recollecting and strengthening their bond.
"I just talked to his father. He said they were doing a lot of firsts when [Ray] was here," Mikolajczyk said. "He had taken him fishing. He had never seen snow, so when it snowed they went sledding."
Brooks left the company and Toledo in December to go back to his family in Atlanta, but indicated that he was going to return after "getting some ducks in order," according to Mikolajczyk.
She said he kept in touch with a lot of the Ark Restoration team over the last couple of months and talked highly of his family.
"He was an amazing individual. He took care of his family and friends," Mikolajczyk said (Pereira 1-2).
Those who knew him remembered Mr. Brooks, 27, as a caring father and a dancer more distinguished by enthusiasm than ability. His mother-in-law, Rochelle Gooden, said he had loved old rhythm-and-blues songs and liked to barbecue.
“He always took me as Mom, and I always took him as Son,” she said. “I never called him Rayshard, I called him my son.”
At his funeral, the Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, said Mr. Brooks “wasn’t just running from the police.” (Mr. Warnock was later elected to the U.S. Senate.)
“He was running from a system that makes slaves out of people,” Mr. Warnock said. “This is much bigger than the police. This is about a whole system that cries out for renewal and reform.”
…
Mr. Brooks was 18 feet 3 inches away when the first shot was fired. Prosecutors said that as Mr. Brooks lay dying, Officer Rolfe kicked his bleeding body and the other officer, Devin Brosnan, stood on his shoulder. The officers, both of whom are white, failed to render aid for more than two minutes, prosecutors said.
In a rare move, officials acted quickly after Mr. Brooks’s death, firing Mr. Rolfe, the officer who shot Mr. Brooks, and charging him with murder and aggravated assault. At a news conference announcing the charges against Mr. Rolfe, prosecutors said that the officer declared, “I got him,” after firing the fatal shots at Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Rolfe faces 11 counts, including murder, and Mr. Brosnan faces three counts, including aggravated assault.
In August, Mr. Rolfe sued the mayor of Atlanta and the interim police chief over his dismissal from the police force, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The prosecutor who filed the charges against Mr. Rolfe was voted out of office in November, and his successor in late January formally asked the state attorney general to transfer the case against Mr. Rolfe to another county, arguing that her predecessor’s “conduct made it impossible” to prosecute. The request was denied in early February (Ortiz 1-3).
The Atlanta police chief, Erika Shields, resigned shortly after Mr. Brooks’s death, but her department had been rattled by other recent controversies. On May 30, less than two weeks before the killing of Mr. Brooks,
Ms. Shields fired two officers who used a Taser on two college students and dragged them from their car during a George Floyd protest.
In January [2021], Ms. Shields was hired as police chief of Louisville, a city rife with racial tension that ballooned after Louisville police officers shot Breanna Taylor during a botched raid on her apartment in March.
In addition to Ms. Shields’s resignation and charges against the officers involved, the killing of Mr. Brooks also inspired weeks of protests and unrest in Atlanta as well as across the nation (Ortiz 4).
Garrett Rolfe, the Atlanta police officer who was fired from his job after fatally shooting a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, in a fast-food parking lot, was reinstated on Wednesday by the city’s Civil Service Board, which found that Officer Rolfe’s firing violated his due process rights.
Officer Rolfe was terminated one day after the shooting, which came a few weeks after the police killing of another Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis. The killing of Mr. Brooks led to a new round of demonstrations across the United States, including in Atlanta.
Though reinstated to his job, Officer Rolfe is being placed on administrative leave until the resolution of murder and aggravated assault charges he faces for the June 12 shooting, according to a city news release. Though criminally charged, Officer Rolfe has not yet been indicted, a step needed for the case to move forward. …
…
The decision by the Civil Service Board to reinstate Officer Rolfe turned not on whether the shooting was justified, but on whether the city had followed proper procedures when firing him. …
…
… in its written order on Wednesday, the board noted that Officer Rolfe was not afforded the opportunity to adequately respond to the city’s notice that it intended to fire him. The decision cited the testimony of Sgt. William Dean of the Atlanta police’s internal affairs division, who said that the firing “seemed rushed.”
…
In a statement, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defended the city’s move to fire Officer Rolfe so quickly, given the level of anger and pain in the streets of Atlanta, a majority African-American city.
“Given the volatile state of our city and nation last summer, the decision to terminate this officer, after he fatally shot Mr. Brooks in the back, was the right thing to do,” Ms. Bottoms said. “Had immediate action not been taken, I firmly believe that the public safety crisis we experienced during that time would have been significantly worse” (Fausset 1-2).
Works cited:
Browne, Malachy, Kelso, Christina, and Marcolini, Barbara. “How Rayshard Brooks Was Fatally Shot by the Atlanta Police.” The New York Times, updated May 5, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us...
Ellis, Nicquel Terry. “'Baby, I Don't Want That To Be You': Rayshard Brooks' Wife Feared for His Safety.” USA Today, updated June 15, 2020. Net. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...
Fausset, Richard. “Atlanta Officer Who Fatally Shot Rayshard Brooks Is Reinstated.” The New York Times, May 5, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/us...
Ortiz, Aimee. “What To Know about the Death of Rayshard Brooks.” The New York Times, May 6, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/article/raysh...
Pereira, Ivan. “Rayshard Brooks Remembered for Hard Work and Dedication to Family.” ABC News, June 15, 2020. Net. https://abcnews.go.com/US/rayshard-br....
July 15, 2021
Bad Apples -- 05--25--2020, Derek Chauvin
The four teenagers drove around Minneapolis playing a game of Nerf Gun Assassin on a May evening before graduation in 2013. One of them randomly fired an orange dart out the window.
It was a stupid teenager move. What happened next was deadly serious: Two Minneapolis police officers pulled up, pointed their guns at the teenagers and shouted orders laced with expletives, two of them later recalled.
Kristofer Bergh, then 17, said he kept telling himself not to move suddenly or give the police any reason to shoot him. The youth who had fired the dart was steered into their cruiser for what seemed like an hour, and the officers seized everyone’s Nerf guns. One officer made a lasting impression; in fact, Bergh and another passenger said they would never forget him, nor what he said as he gave them back their guns.
“Most of you will be 18 by the end of the year,” the officer said, before letting them go. “That means you’ll be old enough for ‘big boy jail.’”
…
The roadside encounter with the four teenagers led to a complaint against [Derek] Chauvin, and it reflected what both co-workers and citizens told the New York Times about encountering the officer over his 19 years with the Minneapolis Police Department: Chauvin did his job as if he were playing a role — a tough Dirty Harry on the lookout for bad guys.
“He was overly aggressive and not understanding that we were just kids,” recalled Noah McGurran-Hanson, who was in the car with Bergh and the two others, all of whom are white. “He was treating us like we had been tried and convicted.”
Chauvin, his lawyer and family members have declined to talk to the Times. Yet dozens of interviews with acquaintances depict a police officer who seemed to operate at an emotional distance from those around him. Chauvin was a quiet and rigid workaholic with poor people skills and a tendency to overreact — with intoxicated people, especially — when a less aggressive stance might have led to a better outcome, interviews show.
He was awkward. Other officers often didn’t like him or didn’t know him. He didn’t go to parties and didn’t seem to have many friends. Some neighbors knew so little about him that they didn’t even know he was a police officer until after his arrest. Even his wife of 10 years, a Hmong refugee and real estate agent, ended up estranged: Days after Floyd’s death, she filed for divorce and asked to change her last name.
Chauvin always wanted action. He continued to pound the streets in one of Minneapolis’s busiest precincts on its hardest shift, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., long after many others his age moved to desk jobs or the day shift.
That earned him kudos. He received two medals of commendation, for tackling an armed suspect and arresting an armed gang member. He also was awarded two medals of valor, after shooting a man wielding a sawed-off shotgun and subduing a domestic-violence suspect — whom he shot and wounded in the process.
But his performance also led to at least 22 complaints or internal investigations. Only one resulted in discipline. (… his complaint was shrugged off by a sergeant who apologized for any “negative interaction”) (Kovaleski and Barker 1-3).
Minneapolis City Council records show that Chauvin moonlighted as a bouncer at a downtown Latin nightclub. He was among a group of six officers who opened fire on a stabbing suspect in 2006 after a chase that ended when the suspect pointed a sawed-off shotgun at them. The suspect, Wayne Reyes, was hit multiple times and died. A grand jury decided the use of force was justified.
Two years later, Chauvin shot Ira Latrell Toles as he was responding to a domestic dispute.
According to a Pioneer Press account of the incident, a 911 operator received a call from an apartment and heard a woman yelling for someone to stop hitting her. Chauvin and another officer arrived just as Toles locked himself in the bathroom.
Chauvin forced his way into the bathroom. Toles went for Chauvin’s gun and Chauvin shot him twice in the stomach. Toles survived and was charged with two counts of felony obstruction.
Toles told the Daily Beast that the mother of his child called police that night and he fled into the bathroom after officers broke down the apartment door. Chauvin then broke down the bathroom door and started to hit him without warning. He said he fought back in self-defense and was too disoriented to go for Chauvin’s gun.
Toles said he ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and still feels pain from the shooting.
“He tried to kill me in that bathroom,” Toles said.
Online city records also show that 17 complaints have been filed against Chauvin. Sixteen complaints were closed with no discipline. The remaining complaint generated two letters of reprimand, with one apparently related to the use of a squad car dashboard camera. The records don’t include any details on the substance of the complaints.
Chauvin also was among a group of five officers in 2011 who chased down an American Indian, Leroy Martinez, in a housing complex after they spotted him running with a pistol. One of the officers, Terry Nutter, shot Martinez in the torso. Martinez survived. All the officers were placed on leave but absolved of any wrongdoing, with Police Chief Timothy Dolan saying they acted “appropriately and courageously.”
A much different side of Chauvin was portrayed in a 2018 newspaper profile of his wife, Kellie, a Laotian refugee who became the first Hmong Mrs. Minnesota. She told the Pioneer Press that they met when he dropped off a suspect at a Minneapolis hospital where she worked.
“Under that uniform, he’s just a softie,” she said. “He’s such a gentleman. He still opens the door for me, still puts my coat on for me. After my divorce, I had a list of must-haves if I were ever to be in a relationship, and he fit all of them” (Richmond 1-3).
That is a high number [of complaints] compared with other officers, said Dave Bicking, a board member of Communities United Against Police Brutality, based in the Twin Cities. “His numbers should have definitely raised alarm with the department and triggered a review,” said Bicking, adding that most officers might get one or two complaints in seven years.
Even on the police force, Chauvin was an outsider. He often partnered with a rookie he was training, exacting in his expectations. That was fine with veteran colleagues, who did not necessarily want to ride alongside him.
“Occasionally, he would seem a little cocky,” said Lucy Gerold, a retired police commander who knew Chauvin. He was, she said, “the guy not everybody liked or wanted to work with.”
Chauvin spent his early years in suburban West St. Paul, with a stay-at-home mother and a father who earned about $1,000 a month as a certified public accountant, barely enough for their small family. When Derek was 7, his mother filed for divorce, asking for the family home and child support for Derek and his baby sister.
His father soon asked for a paternity test of Derek’s baby sister; a blood test showed he was not the father. His father ended up with the family home and shared custody of Derek. His mother married her lover. And Derek attended four elementary schools in five years.
Derek did not play sports in school — at least, not that anyone remembers. He did not have a yearbook photo for his junior or senior years. One classmate from Park High School in Cottage Grove remembered him as the student in ROTC who never talked but always held the flag. Another classmate, Scott Swanson, said Derek flew under the radar.
“I don’t think he was an outcast or anything like that,” said Swanson, who said he had talked to fellow classmates in recent weeks who also barely recalled him. “He was just a face in the crowd.”
Weeks after graduation, Chauvin started as a prep cook at Tinucci’s, a Newport restaurant 10 minutes from home. He enrolled that fall at a local technical college to study “quantity food preparation.”
But Chauvin decided he wanted a uniform.
He studied law enforcement at a community college; eventually, he would also earn a Metropolitan State University degree in law enforcement. After joining the military police, he was deployed to a U.S. Army base in Germany, where he studied for the Minnesota police exam in his spare time. He did not socialize much or drink alcohol.
“He volunteered to be a designated driver for the guys who wanted to go into town at night and have a few beers,” said Jerry Obieglo, a platoon sergeant who supervised Chauvin.
Back home, in September 2000, at age 24, he applied to the Minneapolis police.
From the beginning, Chauvin stood out as gung-ho. When he reported for training after the police academy, he showed up in a new white Crown Victoria outfitted to resemble a police car, recalled one officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because talking to the news media could get him fired.
Leaving work, most officers dressed casually. But Chauvin, who stood ramrod straight like he was still in the military, left in full uniform, his pants pulled higher than most people wore them, his boots polished.
“In a group setting he would never connect and stand there like a small child,” the officer said. He added: “I was put off by his lack of communication skills. You never felt like he was present.”
Chauvin landed in the Third Precinct, one of the city’s busiest.
The biggest call of his young career came when he was 30, in 2006: Shortly after midnight, he and five other officers pursued a car driven by a man suspected of stabbing two friends. The man soon pointed a sawed-off shotgun at officers, the police said. They shot the man, fatally. Chauvin received a medal of valor.
Chauvin soon earned two letters of reprimand for his behavior on another call — his only formal discipline.
In August 2007, Melissa Borton was heading home from grocery shopping when Chauvin and a fellow officer pulled her over. Chauvin reached into the open window of Borton’s minivan, unlocked her door, undid her seat belt and started pulling her out, without any explanation, she recalled. Her baby and dog were left in the vehicle.
She said the officers put her in their cruiser and told her that they were looking for a vehicle resembling hers that had been involved in a crime. Eventually they told Borton, who was by then quite upset, that she could leave.
“When I got out, they noticed that my shirt was wet, which was from being a breastfeeding mother,” Borton recalled. She could not tell who taunted her as she returned to her car. “Chauvin or the other officer rudely said, ‘You probably have postpartum depression, and you need help.’”
Until he was 27, Chauvin’s home address was his grandmother’s suburban house in Inver Grove Heights.
But about the time he pulled over Borton, Chauvin was becoming serious with his girlfriend, Kellie Xiong.
Xiong was a survivor. Her father had been a Hmong soldier fighting Communists in Laos before the family fled in the late 1970s. After more than a year in a Thai refugee camp, the family moved to Wisconsin, sponsored by a church in Eau Claire.
Xiong married another Hmong refugee in 1991 in what she later told the Pioneer Press was an arranged marriage. She was 16. By 19, she had given birth to two sons.
She later left her husband, whom she described as abusive, and moved to the Minneapolis area to work as a radiology technician at Hennepin County Medical Center. There, she met Chauvin, who had brought someone in for a health check before an arrest, she told the Pioneer Press. He soon asked her out.
By 2008, they were planning their lives. Two weeks after Xiong filed for divorce from her first husband, Chauvin bought a new house in a new subdivision for $441,000. It was fit for a family, with four bedrooms, four bathrooms and a three-car garage.
The couple married in June 2010. From the beginning, they spread their money thin. Not only did Chauvin hold on to a townhouse he had bought in 2003, but the couple also bought a vacation home near Disney World in Florida in 2011.
Chauvin soon fell behind on fees for his townhouse. On a delinquency notice for $280 in 2013, Chauvin responded that he had paid everything and added, “So no payment is actually owed!” He faxed the response at 3:17 a.m., after finishing his shift in the Third Precinct.
By July 2014, the small debt had snowballed into a judgment of almost $8,000 because Chauvin never came to court.
Meanwhile, the Chauvins downsized. They sold their large house for almost $60,000 less than its purchase price. They bought a home a few blocks away, almost half the size.
In 2015, they appeared to toy with moving to Florida. They sold the home they had just bought. Kellie Chauvin got her radiology technology license in Florida. Derek Chauvin registered to vote there.
But they stayed in Minnesota, living in Oakdale, where Kellie Chauvin got her real estate license in 2016. In her spare time, Kellie Chauvin continued with one passion — rescuing dogs, often caring for four at once — and found another, in beauty pageants.
Before one pageant, she described her husband as a “softy” who always opened doors for her.
But there were some awkward moments at the Mrs. Minnesota America contest in June 2018 when the husbands joined the show. A host asked Derek Chauvin, wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo and bow tie, what additional competition the women should perform. He suggested a rock-climbing wall — for the husbands.
“Well, you’re not competing, I’m talking about your wife here,” the host replied.
During a quiz segment, each contestant wrote down something about her husband, and the men had to guess which one described him.
Derek Chauvin failed miserably, even as other husbands correctly recognized their wives’ responses. Initially, Derek Chauvin thought he was the one whose wife said he liked to tell stories. But he wasn’t.
A bit later, a host gave another clue: “Whoever you are, you do upside-down hanging crunches. You can do 100 at a time.”
No one stepped forward.
“Uh, Derek Chauvin?” the host said.
The Chauvins often seemed to live on separate tracks.
When Kellie Chauvin took trips to help dogs — including one she rescued from Florida and named Marley — she often brought a female friend for company.
On most weekends for 17 years, Derek Chauvin worked an off-duty police gig outside the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub, earning $55 an hour. Maya Santamaria, who once owned the club, said the Third Precinct decided which officers were assigned.
Derek Chauvin often overreacted when he saw something that bothered him, like unruly behavior around the Lake Street club, including drunk patrons congregating on the street — especially on “urban nights,” when the clientele was largely Black, Santamaria said.
He often resorted to using pepper spray, she said. When she complained, she said, she usually got the same response.
“That is protocol,” Derek Chauvin told her.
Floyd, by coincidence, also did security at the club, but Santamaria said she does not recall seeing them together since Floyd worked inside.
Their one known encounter came on the evening of May 25, after a corner store employee reported that Floyd had tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Two rookie officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, responded.
The two failed to get Floyd into their cruiser. Derek Chauvin and another officer, Tou Thao, arrived. Chauvin had been Kueng’s main training officer; Lane had relied on him for advice. (The three other officers, who were fired alongside Chauvin, have been charged with aiding and abetting in Floyd’s death.)
At Chauvin’s suggestion, the officers got Floyd, agitated and struggling, on the ground. Chauvin jammed his knee in the back of Floyd’s neck. The rookies held his back and legs.
Body camera footage shows what unfolded:
As Floyd said he could not breathe and asked for his mother, Chauvin uttered another tough-cop line. “You’re under arrest, guy,” he said. “That’s why you’re going to jail.”
Chauvin asked if Floyd was high; Lane said he assumed so. Toxicology results would later show that Floyd was on fentanyl.
“They’re going to kill me, man,” Floyd said a few moments later.
“Takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to say that,” Chauvin replied nonchalantly.
After the remark, Floyd said he could not breathe four times and “please” three times, and then nothing. Lane, who had called for an ambulance because Floyd’s mouth was bleeding, asked Chauvin whether he wanted Floyd on his side.
“No, leave him,” Chauvin said. He said an ambulance was coming.
In the middle of this — of a man dying, under his knee — Chauvin checked his rookies. “You guys all right, though?” Chauvin asked.
Lane asked again if they should roll Floyd on his side. Onlookers asked if he had a pulse. “You got one?” Lane asked.
“I can’t find one,” Kueng said.
“Uh-huh,” Chauvin replied.
Kueng tried again, and again said he could not find a pulse. Still, Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than two minutes. He ignored the crowd, the pleas for Floyd’s life, the jeers. He waited for an ambulance that showed up far too late. And only then did Chauvin stand up (Kovaleski and Barker 4-12).
A prison inmate at Minnesota Correctional Facility at Oak Park Heights, the five star maximum security prison where Derek Chauvin is being held, believes the convicted ex-cop is not safe with the general population.
“First of all, he’s a cop. Then he did what he did,” Hannabal Shaddai, 48, who is currently serving a lifetime sentence at the maximum security level prison, told Paradox on a recorded phone call from the facility. “So it’s not safe for him to be here. Best case scenario for him is he’s going to get beat up a lot. I don’t think he’s safe in any prison population.”
…
Shaddai shares the same case manager as Chauvin and speculates the former police officer is only interacting with guards, nurses, and mental health experts. Unlike Shaddai, Chauvin won’t be enjoying the freedoms of the general population as long as he’s held in isolation and on suicide watch with cameras capturing his every move. Shaddai didn’t express any personal plans to seek retribution but speculated that in a facility like Oak Park Heights where violence occurs regularly, Chauvin wouldn’t be safe to be placed in the general population.
“I heard he’s been complaining about people messing with his food,” continued Shaddai. “But there’s a camera in his cell, there’s cameras everywhere, so I don’t think someone would risk their job to do something to his food. Maybe a few correctional officers are sympathetic to him, but man, anybody who’s human is going to be upset about what he did. All he had to do was move his knee a few inches.”
Like most of the other Oak Park Heights inmates, Shaddai has seen the video of Chauvin with his knee pressed against George Floyd’s neck.
“I’m dark skinned so you know, it hits home…For me, that picture of [Chauvin] just sitting on his knee with his hand in his pocket just slowly killing that man, with the Asian guy standing there keeping the crowd back, and another white man and an African-American man sitting on top of him, that whole picture says to me everything in this country,” Shaddai told Paradox. “It says, ‘I’m going to kill one of you motherfuckers in broad daylight with the help of one of your own and ain’t nobody going to do nothing about it.’”
Shaddai previously went by the name Kevin Vashon Wilson, and was sentenced in 1995 for first-degree felony murder and attempted first-degree felony murder. Despite his reaction to the George Floyd video, he thinks Chauvin should be given a path toward forgiveness.
“The dude is abnormal man, we make him out to be a monster. Just like when I went to trial, the victim’s family said I was a monster,” continued Shaddai. “But this is the thing, he didn’t get that way by himself if somebody put this racist stuff in him… We’re quick to call somebody a monster, but society creates the monster. Like me, I’m in here 27 years, trying to do better myself asking, ‘Why did I do these things?’ I’ve wanted to better myself” (Dressler 1-2).
Derek Chauvin … was sentenced Friday [June 25, 2021] to 22 and half years in prison.
Chauvin, in a light gray suit and tie and white shirt, spoke briefly before the sentence was imposed, offering his "condolences to the Floyd family."
Under Minnesota law, Chauvin will have to serve two-thirds of his sentence, or 15 years -- and he will be eligible for supervised release for the remaining seven and a half years.
…
Judge Peter Cahill said the sentence was not based on emotion or public opinion. He wanted to "acknowledge the deep and tremendous pain that all of the families are feeling, especially the Floyd family," the judge said.
In a 22 page memorandum, Cahill wrote that two aggravating factors warranted a harsher sentence -- that Chauvin "abused his position of trust or authority" and treated Floyd with "particular cruelty." Chauvin, the judge wrote, treated Floyd "without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings" (Sanchez and Levenson 1).
Works cited:
Dressler, Jake. Derek Chauvin Inmate Says Convicted Cop Is Not Safe in General Population.” Paradox, May 2, 2021. Net. https://paradoxpolitics.com/2021/05/d...
Kovaleski, Serge F. and Barker, Kim. “The Quiet Life of Derek Chauvin Before the Public Death of George Floyd.” Twin Cities, updated April 21, 2021. Net. https://www.twincities.com/2020/07/19...
Richmond, Todd. “Officer Accused in Floyd’s Death Opened Fire on 2 People.” AP News, May 29, 2020. Net. https://apnews.com/article/shootings-...
Sanchez, Ray and Levenson, Eric. “Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22.5 Years in Death of George Floyd.” CNN, updated June 25, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/us/der...
It was a stupid teenager move. What happened next was deadly serious: Two Minneapolis police officers pulled up, pointed their guns at the teenagers and shouted orders laced with expletives, two of them later recalled.
Kristofer Bergh, then 17, said he kept telling himself not to move suddenly or give the police any reason to shoot him. The youth who had fired the dart was steered into their cruiser for what seemed like an hour, and the officers seized everyone’s Nerf guns. One officer made a lasting impression; in fact, Bergh and another passenger said they would never forget him, nor what he said as he gave them back their guns.
“Most of you will be 18 by the end of the year,” the officer said, before letting them go. “That means you’ll be old enough for ‘big boy jail.’”
…
The roadside encounter with the four teenagers led to a complaint against [Derek] Chauvin, and it reflected what both co-workers and citizens told the New York Times about encountering the officer over his 19 years with the Minneapolis Police Department: Chauvin did his job as if he were playing a role — a tough Dirty Harry on the lookout for bad guys.
“He was overly aggressive and not understanding that we were just kids,” recalled Noah McGurran-Hanson, who was in the car with Bergh and the two others, all of whom are white. “He was treating us like we had been tried and convicted.”
Chauvin, his lawyer and family members have declined to talk to the Times. Yet dozens of interviews with acquaintances depict a police officer who seemed to operate at an emotional distance from those around him. Chauvin was a quiet and rigid workaholic with poor people skills and a tendency to overreact — with intoxicated people, especially — when a less aggressive stance might have led to a better outcome, interviews show.
He was awkward. Other officers often didn’t like him or didn’t know him. He didn’t go to parties and didn’t seem to have many friends. Some neighbors knew so little about him that they didn’t even know he was a police officer until after his arrest. Even his wife of 10 years, a Hmong refugee and real estate agent, ended up estranged: Days after Floyd’s death, she filed for divorce and asked to change her last name.
Chauvin always wanted action. He continued to pound the streets in one of Minneapolis’s busiest precincts on its hardest shift, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., long after many others his age moved to desk jobs or the day shift.
That earned him kudos. He received two medals of commendation, for tackling an armed suspect and arresting an armed gang member. He also was awarded two medals of valor, after shooting a man wielding a sawed-off shotgun and subduing a domestic-violence suspect — whom he shot and wounded in the process.
But his performance also led to at least 22 complaints or internal investigations. Only one resulted in discipline. (… his complaint was shrugged off by a sergeant who apologized for any “negative interaction”) (Kovaleski and Barker 1-3).
Minneapolis City Council records show that Chauvin moonlighted as a bouncer at a downtown Latin nightclub. He was among a group of six officers who opened fire on a stabbing suspect in 2006 after a chase that ended when the suspect pointed a sawed-off shotgun at them. The suspect, Wayne Reyes, was hit multiple times and died. A grand jury decided the use of force was justified.
Two years later, Chauvin shot Ira Latrell Toles as he was responding to a domestic dispute.
According to a Pioneer Press account of the incident, a 911 operator received a call from an apartment and heard a woman yelling for someone to stop hitting her. Chauvin and another officer arrived just as Toles locked himself in the bathroom.
Chauvin forced his way into the bathroom. Toles went for Chauvin’s gun and Chauvin shot him twice in the stomach. Toles survived and was charged with two counts of felony obstruction.
Toles told the Daily Beast that the mother of his child called police that night and he fled into the bathroom after officers broke down the apartment door. Chauvin then broke down the bathroom door and started to hit him without warning. He said he fought back in self-defense and was too disoriented to go for Chauvin’s gun.
Toles said he ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and still feels pain from the shooting.
“He tried to kill me in that bathroom,” Toles said.
Online city records also show that 17 complaints have been filed against Chauvin. Sixteen complaints were closed with no discipline. The remaining complaint generated two letters of reprimand, with one apparently related to the use of a squad car dashboard camera. The records don’t include any details on the substance of the complaints.
Chauvin also was among a group of five officers in 2011 who chased down an American Indian, Leroy Martinez, in a housing complex after they spotted him running with a pistol. One of the officers, Terry Nutter, shot Martinez in the torso. Martinez survived. All the officers were placed on leave but absolved of any wrongdoing, with Police Chief Timothy Dolan saying they acted “appropriately and courageously.”
A much different side of Chauvin was portrayed in a 2018 newspaper profile of his wife, Kellie, a Laotian refugee who became the first Hmong Mrs. Minnesota. She told the Pioneer Press that they met when he dropped off a suspect at a Minneapolis hospital where she worked.
“Under that uniform, he’s just a softie,” she said. “He’s such a gentleman. He still opens the door for me, still puts my coat on for me. After my divorce, I had a list of must-haves if I were ever to be in a relationship, and he fit all of them” (Richmond 1-3).
That is a high number [of complaints] compared with other officers, said Dave Bicking, a board member of Communities United Against Police Brutality, based in the Twin Cities. “His numbers should have definitely raised alarm with the department and triggered a review,” said Bicking, adding that most officers might get one or two complaints in seven years.
Even on the police force, Chauvin was an outsider. He often partnered with a rookie he was training, exacting in his expectations. That was fine with veteran colleagues, who did not necessarily want to ride alongside him.
“Occasionally, he would seem a little cocky,” said Lucy Gerold, a retired police commander who knew Chauvin. He was, she said, “the guy not everybody liked or wanted to work with.”
Chauvin spent his early years in suburban West St. Paul, with a stay-at-home mother and a father who earned about $1,000 a month as a certified public accountant, barely enough for their small family. When Derek was 7, his mother filed for divorce, asking for the family home and child support for Derek and his baby sister.
His father soon asked for a paternity test of Derek’s baby sister; a blood test showed he was not the father. His father ended up with the family home and shared custody of Derek. His mother married her lover. And Derek attended four elementary schools in five years.
Derek did not play sports in school — at least, not that anyone remembers. He did not have a yearbook photo for his junior or senior years. One classmate from Park High School in Cottage Grove remembered him as the student in ROTC who never talked but always held the flag. Another classmate, Scott Swanson, said Derek flew under the radar.
“I don’t think he was an outcast or anything like that,” said Swanson, who said he had talked to fellow classmates in recent weeks who also barely recalled him. “He was just a face in the crowd.”
Weeks after graduation, Chauvin started as a prep cook at Tinucci’s, a Newport restaurant 10 minutes from home. He enrolled that fall at a local technical college to study “quantity food preparation.”
But Chauvin decided he wanted a uniform.
He studied law enforcement at a community college; eventually, he would also earn a Metropolitan State University degree in law enforcement. After joining the military police, he was deployed to a U.S. Army base in Germany, where he studied for the Minnesota police exam in his spare time. He did not socialize much or drink alcohol.
“He volunteered to be a designated driver for the guys who wanted to go into town at night and have a few beers,” said Jerry Obieglo, a platoon sergeant who supervised Chauvin.
Back home, in September 2000, at age 24, he applied to the Minneapolis police.
From the beginning, Chauvin stood out as gung-ho. When he reported for training after the police academy, he showed up in a new white Crown Victoria outfitted to resemble a police car, recalled one officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because talking to the news media could get him fired.
Leaving work, most officers dressed casually. But Chauvin, who stood ramrod straight like he was still in the military, left in full uniform, his pants pulled higher than most people wore them, his boots polished.
“In a group setting he would never connect and stand there like a small child,” the officer said. He added: “I was put off by his lack of communication skills. You never felt like he was present.”
Chauvin landed in the Third Precinct, one of the city’s busiest.
The biggest call of his young career came when he was 30, in 2006: Shortly after midnight, he and five other officers pursued a car driven by a man suspected of stabbing two friends. The man soon pointed a sawed-off shotgun at officers, the police said. They shot the man, fatally. Chauvin received a medal of valor.
Chauvin soon earned two letters of reprimand for his behavior on another call — his only formal discipline.
In August 2007, Melissa Borton was heading home from grocery shopping when Chauvin and a fellow officer pulled her over. Chauvin reached into the open window of Borton’s minivan, unlocked her door, undid her seat belt and started pulling her out, without any explanation, she recalled. Her baby and dog were left in the vehicle.
She said the officers put her in their cruiser and told her that they were looking for a vehicle resembling hers that had been involved in a crime. Eventually they told Borton, who was by then quite upset, that she could leave.
“When I got out, they noticed that my shirt was wet, which was from being a breastfeeding mother,” Borton recalled. She could not tell who taunted her as she returned to her car. “Chauvin or the other officer rudely said, ‘You probably have postpartum depression, and you need help.’”
Until he was 27, Chauvin’s home address was his grandmother’s suburban house in Inver Grove Heights.
But about the time he pulled over Borton, Chauvin was becoming serious with his girlfriend, Kellie Xiong.
Xiong was a survivor. Her father had been a Hmong soldier fighting Communists in Laos before the family fled in the late 1970s. After more than a year in a Thai refugee camp, the family moved to Wisconsin, sponsored by a church in Eau Claire.
Xiong married another Hmong refugee in 1991 in what she later told the Pioneer Press was an arranged marriage. She was 16. By 19, she had given birth to two sons.
She later left her husband, whom she described as abusive, and moved to the Minneapolis area to work as a radiology technician at Hennepin County Medical Center. There, she met Chauvin, who had brought someone in for a health check before an arrest, she told the Pioneer Press. He soon asked her out.
By 2008, they were planning their lives. Two weeks after Xiong filed for divorce from her first husband, Chauvin bought a new house in a new subdivision for $441,000. It was fit for a family, with four bedrooms, four bathrooms and a three-car garage.
The couple married in June 2010. From the beginning, they spread their money thin. Not only did Chauvin hold on to a townhouse he had bought in 2003, but the couple also bought a vacation home near Disney World in Florida in 2011.
Chauvin soon fell behind on fees for his townhouse. On a delinquency notice for $280 in 2013, Chauvin responded that he had paid everything and added, “So no payment is actually owed!” He faxed the response at 3:17 a.m., after finishing his shift in the Third Precinct.
By July 2014, the small debt had snowballed into a judgment of almost $8,000 because Chauvin never came to court.
Meanwhile, the Chauvins downsized. They sold their large house for almost $60,000 less than its purchase price. They bought a home a few blocks away, almost half the size.
In 2015, they appeared to toy with moving to Florida. They sold the home they had just bought. Kellie Chauvin got her radiology technology license in Florida. Derek Chauvin registered to vote there.
But they stayed in Minnesota, living in Oakdale, where Kellie Chauvin got her real estate license in 2016. In her spare time, Kellie Chauvin continued with one passion — rescuing dogs, often caring for four at once — and found another, in beauty pageants.
Before one pageant, she described her husband as a “softy” who always opened doors for her.
But there were some awkward moments at the Mrs. Minnesota America contest in June 2018 when the husbands joined the show. A host asked Derek Chauvin, wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo and bow tie, what additional competition the women should perform. He suggested a rock-climbing wall — for the husbands.
“Well, you’re not competing, I’m talking about your wife here,” the host replied.
During a quiz segment, each contestant wrote down something about her husband, and the men had to guess which one described him.
Derek Chauvin failed miserably, even as other husbands correctly recognized their wives’ responses. Initially, Derek Chauvin thought he was the one whose wife said he liked to tell stories. But he wasn’t.
A bit later, a host gave another clue: “Whoever you are, you do upside-down hanging crunches. You can do 100 at a time.”
No one stepped forward.
“Uh, Derek Chauvin?” the host said.
The Chauvins often seemed to live on separate tracks.
When Kellie Chauvin took trips to help dogs — including one she rescued from Florida and named Marley — she often brought a female friend for company.
On most weekends for 17 years, Derek Chauvin worked an off-duty police gig outside the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub, earning $55 an hour. Maya Santamaria, who once owned the club, said the Third Precinct decided which officers were assigned.
Derek Chauvin often overreacted when he saw something that bothered him, like unruly behavior around the Lake Street club, including drunk patrons congregating on the street — especially on “urban nights,” when the clientele was largely Black, Santamaria said.
He often resorted to using pepper spray, she said. When she complained, she said, she usually got the same response.
“That is protocol,” Derek Chauvin told her.
Floyd, by coincidence, also did security at the club, but Santamaria said she does not recall seeing them together since Floyd worked inside.
Their one known encounter came on the evening of May 25, after a corner store employee reported that Floyd had tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Two rookie officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, responded.
The two failed to get Floyd into their cruiser. Derek Chauvin and another officer, Tou Thao, arrived. Chauvin had been Kueng’s main training officer; Lane had relied on him for advice. (The three other officers, who were fired alongside Chauvin, have been charged with aiding and abetting in Floyd’s death.)
At Chauvin’s suggestion, the officers got Floyd, agitated and struggling, on the ground. Chauvin jammed his knee in the back of Floyd’s neck. The rookies held his back and legs.
Body camera footage shows what unfolded:
As Floyd said he could not breathe and asked for his mother, Chauvin uttered another tough-cop line. “You’re under arrest, guy,” he said. “That’s why you’re going to jail.”
Chauvin asked if Floyd was high; Lane said he assumed so. Toxicology results would later show that Floyd was on fentanyl.
“They’re going to kill me, man,” Floyd said a few moments later.
“Takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to say that,” Chauvin replied nonchalantly.
After the remark, Floyd said he could not breathe four times and “please” three times, and then nothing. Lane, who had called for an ambulance because Floyd’s mouth was bleeding, asked Chauvin whether he wanted Floyd on his side.
“No, leave him,” Chauvin said. He said an ambulance was coming.
In the middle of this — of a man dying, under his knee — Chauvin checked his rookies. “You guys all right, though?” Chauvin asked.
Lane asked again if they should roll Floyd on his side. Onlookers asked if he had a pulse. “You got one?” Lane asked.
“I can’t find one,” Kueng said.
“Uh-huh,” Chauvin replied.
Kueng tried again, and again said he could not find a pulse. Still, Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than two minutes. He ignored the crowd, the pleas for Floyd’s life, the jeers. He waited for an ambulance that showed up far too late. And only then did Chauvin stand up (Kovaleski and Barker 4-12).
A prison inmate at Minnesota Correctional Facility at Oak Park Heights, the five star maximum security prison where Derek Chauvin is being held, believes the convicted ex-cop is not safe with the general population.
“First of all, he’s a cop. Then he did what he did,” Hannabal Shaddai, 48, who is currently serving a lifetime sentence at the maximum security level prison, told Paradox on a recorded phone call from the facility. “So it’s not safe for him to be here. Best case scenario for him is he’s going to get beat up a lot. I don’t think he’s safe in any prison population.”
…
Shaddai shares the same case manager as Chauvin and speculates the former police officer is only interacting with guards, nurses, and mental health experts. Unlike Shaddai, Chauvin won’t be enjoying the freedoms of the general population as long as he’s held in isolation and on suicide watch with cameras capturing his every move. Shaddai didn’t express any personal plans to seek retribution but speculated that in a facility like Oak Park Heights where violence occurs regularly, Chauvin wouldn’t be safe to be placed in the general population.
“I heard he’s been complaining about people messing with his food,” continued Shaddai. “But there’s a camera in his cell, there’s cameras everywhere, so I don’t think someone would risk their job to do something to his food. Maybe a few correctional officers are sympathetic to him, but man, anybody who’s human is going to be upset about what he did. All he had to do was move his knee a few inches.”
Like most of the other Oak Park Heights inmates, Shaddai has seen the video of Chauvin with his knee pressed against George Floyd’s neck.
“I’m dark skinned so you know, it hits home…For me, that picture of [Chauvin] just sitting on his knee with his hand in his pocket just slowly killing that man, with the Asian guy standing there keeping the crowd back, and another white man and an African-American man sitting on top of him, that whole picture says to me everything in this country,” Shaddai told Paradox. “It says, ‘I’m going to kill one of you motherfuckers in broad daylight with the help of one of your own and ain’t nobody going to do nothing about it.’”
Shaddai previously went by the name Kevin Vashon Wilson, and was sentenced in 1995 for first-degree felony murder and attempted first-degree felony murder. Despite his reaction to the George Floyd video, he thinks Chauvin should be given a path toward forgiveness.
“The dude is abnormal man, we make him out to be a monster. Just like when I went to trial, the victim’s family said I was a monster,” continued Shaddai. “But this is the thing, he didn’t get that way by himself if somebody put this racist stuff in him… We’re quick to call somebody a monster, but society creates the monster. Like me, I’m in here 27 years, trying to do better myself asking, ‘Why did I do these things?’ I’ve wanted to better myself” (Dressler 1-2).
Derek Chauvin … was sentenced Friday [June 25, 2021] to 22 and half years in prison.
Chauvin, in a light gray suit and tie and white shirt, spoke briefly before the sentence was imposed, offering his "condolences to the Floyd family."
Under Minnesota law, Chauvin will have to serve two-thirds of his sentence, or 15 years -- and he will be eligible for supervised release for the remaining seven and a half years.
…
Judge Peter Cahill said the sentence was not based on emotion or public opinion. He wanted to "acknowledge the deep and tremendous pain that all of the families are feeling, especially the Floyd family," the judge said.
In a 22 page memorandum, Cahill wrote that two aggravating factors warranted a harsher sentence -- that Chauvin "abused his position of trust or authority" and treated Floyd with "particular cruelty." Chauvin, the judge wrote, treated Floyd "without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings" (Sanchez and Levenson 1).
Works cited:
Dressler, Jake. Derek Chauvin Inmate Says Convicted Cop Is Not Safe in General Population.” Paradox, May 2, 2021. Net. https://paradoxpolitics.com/2021/05/d...
Kovaleski, Serge F. and Barker, Kim. “The Quiet Life of Derek Chauvin Before the Public Death of George Floyd.” Twin Cities, updated April 21, 2021. Net. https://www.twincities.com/2020/07/19...
Richmond, Todd. “Officer Accused in Floyd’s Death Opened Fire on 2 People.” AP News, May 29, 2020. Net. https://apnews.com/article/shootings-...
Sanchez, Ray and Levenson, Eric. “Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22.5 Years in Death of George Floyd.” CNN, updated June 25, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/25/us/der...
July 11, 2021
Bad Apples -- 05--25--2020, George Floyd, Part Two
"Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction."
That was the headline of a Minneapolis Police press release on May 25, 2020, in the hours after an unnamed man in his 40s died. Absent from the nearly 200-word post is any mention of officers restraining him on the ground, a knee on his neck, or any sense of how long this "interaction" lasted.
Thanks to video from a 17-year-old bystander, we now know what really happened: Former police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by using excessive and unreasonable force when he kneeled on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Chauvin was convicted Tuesday on two counts of murder and a count of manslaughter in a Minnesota criminal court.
In light of his conviction, that original press release is worth revisiting to understand the ways that police statements can hide the truth with a mix of passive language, blatant omissions and mangled sense of timing.
… that original press release … begins by saying that Minneapolis Police officers responded to a report of a "forgery in progress," and notes that the suspect "appeared to be under the influence."
"Two officers arrived and located the suspect, a male believed to be in his 40s, in his car. He was ordered to step from his car. After he got out, he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.
"At no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has been called in to investigate this incident at the request of the Minneapolis Police Department.
"No officers were injured in the incident. Body worn cameras were on and activated during this incident."
…
Everything in the police post is, technically speaking, true.
The police were responding to report of a man using a suspected counterfeit $20 bill.
Floyd was under the influence of fentanyl and methamphetamine at the time, according to a toxicology report. He did physically resist officers when they tried to get him into the squad car. They were able to get him into handcuffs.
The officers did notice he appeared to be in medical distress, and they did call for an ambulance. No weapons were "used," at least in the sense that they did not shoot him or beat him with a weapon.
But taken together, the post is deeply misleading and works to obscure the officers' role in his death.
It flips the timing of the handcuffing, hiding the fact that Floyd was in handcuffs nearly from the start of their interaction.
It notes that he was put in handcuffs and "suffering medical distress" in the same sentence, even though they occurred about 20 minutes apart. Most importantly, it ignores what police did in between those two events.
There is no mention that police restrained him in a prone position on the ground or that Chauvin kneeled on Floyd's neck. It does not mention that Chauvin remained in that position for an extended period – 9 minutes and 29 seconds. It does not mention that Floyd repeatedly said "I can't breathe" and called for his "mama" before he lost consciousness, stopped breathing and lost his pulse. It does not state that Chauvin stayed on his neck until paramedics motioned for him to get up off Floyd's limp body.
It also does not mention that former officer Thomas Lane pointed his gun at Floyd while he was in his vehicle, which can be interpreted as "using" a weapon.
We know the truth of all of this because of a remarkable amount of video showing what really happened that day.
The 17-year-old, Darnella Frazier, posted her video to Facebook, which was seen by people across the world, including the Minneapolis Police chief. Genevieve Hansen, an off-duty firefighter who was rebuffed from rendering aid to Floyd, also filmed parts of the scene from a slightly different angle. Another high school student used her friend's phone to film the incident, she testified.
A city surveillance camera from across the street showed the restraint of Floyd from a distance. A 911 dispatcher who watched the live feed of that video called her supervisor to voice her concerns about what she had seen.
Other videos from inside the Cup Foods store, outside a Chinese restaurant and from a bystander in his car showed what happened prior to the fatal restraint.
Finally, three of the officers’ body cameras showed their extended interactions with Floyd up close. Chauvin's camera fell underneath the squad car prior to the restraint so does not show everything, but it reveals his arrival to the scene and his attempt to defend his actions afterward (Levenson 1-3).
[Paste the following New York Times produced video on Google to hear and see the details of Floyd’s arrest and murder]
Video: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody
Upon first learning a man had been hospitalized while in police custody, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo alerted the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and called the mayor, he testified in Chauvin's trial. He then watched video of the arrest from a city camera across the street, but nothing jumped out about it, he testified.
Around midnight, a communications member contacted him to show him Frazier's bystander video, giving the chief an up-close view of the incident, he testified.
The Minneapolis Police Department fired all four officers involved the next day.
On May 26, as Frazier's video went viral and sparked widespread outrage, the Minneapolis Police press release was updated with another vague line: "As additional information has been made available, it has been determined that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (sic) will be a part of this investigation."
Chauvin was arrested and charged with murder on May 29, and the three other officers were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting on June 3. They have pleaded not guilty and are expected to stand trial this summer (Levenson 4).
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer currently on trial for the killing of George Floyd, is an all-too familiar type: a bully with a badge and gun. During his 19 years as an officer, Chauvin was the subject of a score of misconduct complaints. He kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes not because he had to, but because he could.
That the world contains sadistic, racist bullies isn’t breaking news. But, while the national media understandably puts a spotlight on Chauvin, we should not forget that three other Minneapolis police officers were also on the scene that day last May: Officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng.
Their sheer passivity was, in some ways, more stunning than Chauvin’s casual cruelty. They all stood by and watched as Chauvin pressed Floyd’s face into the ground and as Floyd’s pleas for help grew increasingly desperate.
Ultimately, they stood by and watched him die.
… American police departments urgently need to implement high-quality active bystandership training programs to reduce this kind of deadly passivity. These programs can’t turn sadistic bullies into compassionate protectors, and they can’t address the deep structural problems that plague American policing. But, by giving ordinary officers concrete skills to step in to prevent abuses, such training can save lives.
Officers Thao, Lane and Kueng offer a perfect example of what psychologists call “the bystander effect.” They were paralyzed by the powerful social forces that too often operate to prevent even decent people from taking action to halt abuses.
Although Officer Thao was a nine-year police department veteran with several prior misconduct complaints of his own, Lane and Kueng were unjaded rookies, each less than a week out of field training, and they were perceived by their peers as caring, idealistic young officers. Kueng, one of just 80 Black officers in a department of 900, had joined the Minneapolis police because he hoped an increasingly diverse force would reduce police racism and aggression toward people of color.
Lane, who tutored Somali children in his spare time, was known for his calmness and his ability to defuse tense situations. Both had received instructions at the police academy about the dangers of using bodyweight to keep a suspect in a prone position for an extended period.
So why did neither man intervene when it became clear that Floyd was struggling to breathe? …
…
Chauvin was the most experienced officer on the scene, and the less experienced officers deferred to his judgment; Chauvin was insistent about keeping Floyd on the ground and indicated that he was taking steps to keep Floyd alive, creating, for the other officers, a degree of ambiguity about whether Chauvin’s actions were inappropriate. Each of the three officers could see that none of his colleagues was intervening to stop Chauvin, thus diffusing responsibility for any bad outcomes. Finally, differences of class, race and culture might have allowed the officers to view Floyd as “other,” rather than as someone they felt obligated to help.
…
… Video footage of Floyd’s death suggests Lane was uneasy about Chauvin’s actions. At one point, he suggested rolling Floyd onto his side. When Chauvin refused, Lane offered a vague expression of concern for Floyd’s health, but when Chauvin snapped, “[That’s] why we got the ambulance coming,” Lane backed down. A little later, Lane noted that Floyd appeared to be “passing out” and asked once more if Floyd should be rolled over — but again, he didn’t persist when Chauvin ignored him (Brooks 1-4).
If not for Darnella Frazier's quick thinking, Derek Chauvin might still be a Minneapolis police officer.
Instead, Chauvin is behind bars, convicted of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter after kneeling on George Floyd's neck for more than 9 minutes.
Now the teen who stood firm, capturing the longest and clearest bystander video of George Floyd's final moments, is overcome with emotion and praise after Chauvin's convictions Tuesday.
"I just cried so hard," Frazier posted on Facebook.
Darnella Frazier, third from right, recorded Chauvin's murder of Floyd next to her 9-year-old cousin.
…
Frazier kept filming despite the agony of watching Floyd's life slip away.
"I heard George Floyd saying, 'I can't breathe, please, get off of me' ... and crying for his mom," Frazier testified in court. "He was in pain. It seemed like he knew it was over for him."
…
Frazier, who is now 18, replied to the thousands of people who thanked her on Facebook.
"I can't reply to all of your beautiful comments as I wish to, but THANK YOU all of you," she wrote. "The support I had since day one carried me a long way so thank you again" (Yan 1-3).
When the seven women and five men on the jury in the Derek Chauvin murder trial gathered in a hotel conference room to start deliberating, there was one holdout, said one juror, Brandon Mitchell. After hearing about half the other jurors speak, the holdout was ready to convict on manslaughter.
So began five hours of deliberations over two days, said Mr. Mitchell, a 31-year-old high school basketball coach, also known as juror No. 52.
Mr. Mitchell is the first juror who sat through deliberations to speak out about what it was like to convict the former police officer of murder and manslaughter after sitting for three weeks hearing testimony and, he said, watching video of George Floyd die “over and over.”
The jury got the case on a Monday evening after a full day of closing arguments. Once they had selected a foreman, they took an initial vote, with 11 of the 12 jurors ready to convict Mr. Chauvin of manslaughter. The lone holdout told the group that the juror needed more time, Mr. Mitchell said, so the jurors had a chance to explain why they felt the charge fit.
By the time it was the holdout’s chance to speak, the juror had already come around, he said. After one hour of deliberation, the jurors were ready to call it a night. …
After spending the night alone in their rooms, they reassembled at 8 a.m. the next day.
Their first vote on third-degree murder was again 11 to 1, with the same holdout, Mr. Mitchell said. This time, they called up testimony and different pieces of evidence. Jurors gave their own interpretation of the legal issues required to approve the charge.
They also created their own timeline, relating various events to when Mr. Floyd stopped breathing.
It took 3½ hours to reach a consensus on third-degree murder, he said. By the time they discussed the second-degree charge, he said it only took another 20 to 30 minutes.
The jurors all had their own ideas about exactly when Mr. Chauvin’s actions broke the law, but Mr. Mitchell said, “we all agreed at some point that it was too much.”
Mr. Mitchell said some of the jurors—including him—would have liked to hear from Mr. Chauvin.
The jurors had left the courtroom by the time Mr. Chauvin was handcuffed and led away, but when Mr. Mitchell saw video of him being taken into custody, he said he felt compassion for him. “He’s a human too,” he said.
“I almost broke down from that,” he said. “We decided his life. That’s tough. That’s tough to deal with. Even though it’s the right decision, it’s still tough.”
Mr. Mitchell, who is Black, lives within a mile of the courthouse, where the trial was held.
He said he saw the protests that exploded last summer after Mr. Floyd’s death, but he doesn’t think he or the other jurors were swayed by fears their decision might trigger more unrest.
“The human aspect of it, in terms of watching somebody die every day, it outweighs that 10-fold,” he said.
…
… He said video—especially the body camera footage from the four officers involved in the arrest—was the most powerful evidence in the trial. He eventually had to stop watching as videos were played again and again. Video clips were played 166 times, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
It was much easier to follow the testimony of Dr. Martin Tobin, a pulmonologist and critical care specialist, who had jurors touch different parts of their necks as he gave them an anatomy lesson and explained how Mr. Chauvin prevented Mr. Floyd from breathing.
“He was the most excellent expert witness they could have had. He just solidified everything because he spoke so scientifically but elementary,” he said.
Mr. Mitchell found the defense’s medical expert, Dr. David Fowler, less convincing.
“When Fowler was coming to the stand, I thought he might be able to possibly prove something else,” he said. “But he didn’t really tell me anything that I thought was concrete.”
His contention that carbon monoxide poisoning may have killed Mr. Floyd didn’t fly with the jury, he said.
“I don’t think anybody paid that any mind,” he said.
He felt Mr. Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, promised to “paint this big picture” but failed to deliver. ...
Mr. Mitchell, who has two brothers and two sisters, said the hardest part was hearing Mr. Floyd’s brother testify.
“I just related to it too much,” he said. “Being big, you know, former athlete and all these things—it just, it really just hit home…. It just felt like something that easily could have been me or anybody else that I know.”
Mr. Mitchell said he decided to come forward because “staying anonymous wouldn’t help push for change.”
Mr. Mitchell said he was pulled over for no reason by Minneapolis police dozens of times in his early 20s, usually driving his mother’s aging Chrysler Sebring. He said he has always told his players to follow the checklist his mother gave him during these encounters.
Take your hat off; announce what you’re doing; be polite; do what you’re told.
But serving on the jury has made him see how wrong it is that a person should be so afraid that a police officer could do them harm that they needed to change their behavior.
“That’s also part of the reason why I’m speaking up now because that is a narrative that is horrible,” he said. “So somebody follows directions or not, they don’t deserve to die. … (Barrett and Winter 1-4).
A federal grand jury has indicted four former Minneapolis police officers in connection with the death of George Floyd, alleging the officers violated Floyd's constitutional rights, according to court documents filed in federal court in Minnesota.
…
According to the indictment, "the defendants saw George Floyd lying on the ground in clear need of medical care, and willfully failed to aid Floyd, thereby acting with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of harm to Floyd."
Chauvin also was charged in a separate indictment related to an incident in which he allegedly used unreasonable force on a Minneapolis 14-year-old in September 2017, the Justice Department said in a statement Friday.
The first count of that indictment says Chauvin "held the teenager by the throat and struck the teenager multiple times in the head with a flashlight," per the DOJ statement. A second count says he "held his knee on the neck and the upper back of the teenager even after the teenager was lying prone, handcuffed, and unresisting, also resulting in bodily injury."
…
The new federal charges are separate from the civil investigation into Minneapolis policing practices announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland last month, the Justice Department said Friday.
...
The statement from civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Antonio Romanucci, and L. Chris Stewart said, "the additional indictment of Derek Chauvin shows a pattern and practice of behavior."
Stewart told CNN's Pamela Brown during an interview Friday that they spoke with Garland after the indictments and shared how the family reacted.
"It was emotional," Stewart said. "They are ecstatic about it. We actually talked to Attorney General Garland today, and I have not heard such passion or sympathy and intention from an attorney general in a very long time. First thing he started with, he said that no one is above the law and that meant a lot."
Stewart added, "He just expressed his sympathy, and you could hear the intention in his voice and the determination to get the family justice. It meant a lot. We were very honored that he did that" (Andone 1-2).
Works cited:
Andone, Dakin. “Federal Grand Jury Indicts Four Former Minneapolis Police Officers in George Floyd's Death.” CNN, updated May 8, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/07/us/fed...
Barrett, Joe, and Winter, Deena. “Derek Chauvin Juror: ‘We All Agreed at Some Point That It Was Too Much’.” The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2021. Net. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-juror-...
Brooks, Rosa. “What about the Cops Who Watched George Floyd Die?” Politico, April 9, 2021. Net. https://www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Levenson, Eric. “How Minneapolis Police First Described the Murder of George Floyd, and What We Know Now.” CNN, April 21, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/min...
Yan, Holly. “A teen with 'a Cell Phone and Sheer Guts' Is Credited for Derek Chauvin's Murder Conviction.” CNN, updated April 21, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/dar...
That was the headline of a Minneapolis Police press release on May 25, 2020, in the hours after an unnamed man in his 40s died. Absent from the nearly 200-word post is any mention of officers restraining him on the ground, a knee on his neck, or any sense of how long this "interaction" lasted.
Thanks to video from a 17-year-old bystander, we now know what really happened: Former police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by using excessive and unreasonable force when he kneeled on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Chauvin was convicted Tuesday on two counts of murder and a count of manslaughter in a Minnesota criminal court.
In light of his conviction, that original press release is worth revisiting to understand the ways that police statements can hide the truth with a mix of passive language, blatant omissions and mangled sense of timing.
… that original press release … begins by saying that Minneapolis Police officers responded to a report of a "forgery in progress," and notes that the suspect "appeared to be under the influence."
"Two officers arrived and located the suspect, a male believed to be in his 40s, in his car. He was ordered to step from his car. After he got out, he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.
"At no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has been called in to investigate this incident at the request of the Minneapolis Police Department.
"No officers were injured in the incident. Body worn cameras were on and activated during this incident."
…
Everything in the police post is, technically speaking, true.
The police were responding to report of a man using a suspected counterfeit $20 bill.
Floyd was under the influence of fentanyl and methamphetamine at the time, according to a toxicology report. He did physically resist officers when they tried to get him into the squad car. They were able to get him into handcuffs.
The officers did notice he appeared to be in medical distress, and they did call for an ambulance. No weapons were "used," at least in the sense that they did not shoot him or beat him with a weapon.
But taken together, the post is deeply misleading and works to obscure the officers' role in his death.
It flips the timing of the handcuffing, hiding the fact that Floyd was in handcuffs nearly from the start of their interaction.
It notes that he was put in handcuffs and "suffering medical distress" in the same sentence, even though they occurred about 20 minutes apart. Most importantly, it ignores what police did in between those two events.
There is no mention that police restrained him in a prone position on the ground or that Chauvin kneeled on Floyd's neck. It does not mention that Chauvin remained in that position for an extended period – 9 minutes and 29 seconds. It does not mention that Floyd repeatedly said "I can't breathe" and called for his "mama" before he lost consciousness, stopped breathing and lost his pulse. It does not state that Chauvin stayed on his neck until paramedics motioned for him to get up off Floyd's limp body.
It also does not mention that former officer Thomas Lane pointed his gun at Floyd while he was in his vehicle, which can be interpreted as "using" a weapon.
We know the truth of all of this because of a remarkable amount of video showing what really happened that day.
The 17-year-old, Darnella Frazier, posted her video to Facebook, which was seen by people across the world, including the Minneapolis Police chief. Genevieve Hansen, an off-duty firefighter who was rebuffed from rendering aid to Floyd, also filmed parts of the scene from a slightly different angle. Another high school student used her friend's phone to film the incident, she testified.
A city surveillance camera from across the street showed the restraint of Floyd from a distance. A 911 dispatcher who watched the live feed of that video called her supervisor to voice her concerns about what she had seen.
Other videos from inside the Cup Foods store, outside a Chinese restaurant and from a bystander in his car showed what happened prior to the fatal restraint.
Finally, three of the officers’ body cameras showed their extended interactions with Floyd up close. Chauvin's camera fell underneath the squad car prior to the restraint so does not show everything, but it reveals his arrival to the scene and his attempt to defend his actions afterward (Levenson 1-3).
[Paste the following New York Times produced video on Google to hear and see the details of Floyd’s arrest and murder]
Video: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody
Upon first learning a man had been hospitalized while in police custody, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo alerted the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and called the mayor, he testified in Chauvin's trial. He then watched video of the arrest from a city camera across the street, but nothing jumped out about it, he testified.
Around midnight, a communications member contacted him to show him Frazier's bystander video, giving the chief an up-close view of the incident, he testified.
The Minneapolis Police Department fired all four officers involved the next day.
On May 26, as Frazier's video went viral and sparked widespread outrage, the Minneapolis Police press release was updated with another vague line: "As additional information has been made available, it has been determined that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (sic) will be a part of this investigation."
Chauvin was arrested and charged with murder on May 29, and the three other officers were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting on June 3. They have pleaded not guilty and are expected to stand trial this summer (Levenson 4).
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer currently on trial for the killing of George Floyd, is an all-too familiar type: a bully with a badge and gun. During his 19 years as an officer, Chauvin was the subject of a score of misconduct complaints. He kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes not because he had to, but because he could.
That the world contains sadistic, racist bullies isn’t breaking news. But, while the national media understandably puts a spotlight on Chauvin, we should not forget that three other Minneapolis police officers were also on the scene that day last May: Officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng.
Their sheer passivity was, in some ways, more stunning than Chauvin’s casual cruelty. They all stood by and watched as Chauvin pressed Floyd’s face into the ground and as Floyd’s pleas for help grew increasingly desperate.
Ultimately, they stood by and watched him die.
… American police departments urgently need to implement high-quality active bystandership training programs to reduce this kind of deadly passivity. These programs can’t turn sadistic bullies into compassionate protectors, and they can’t address the deep structural problems that plague American policing. But, by giving ordinary officers concrete skills to step in to prevent abuses, such training can save lives.
Officers Thao, Lane and Kueng offer a perfect example of what psychologists call “the bystander effect.” They were paralyzed by the powerful social forces that too often operate to prevent even decent people from taking action to halt abuses.
Although Officer Thao was a nine-year police department veteran with several prior misconduct complaints of his own, Lane and Kueng were unjaded rookies, each less than a week out of field training, and they were perceived by their peers as caring, idealistic young officers. Kueng, one of just 80 Black officers in a department of 900, had joined the Minneapolis police because he hoped an increasingly diverse force would reduce police racism and aggression toward people of color.
Lane, who tutored Somali children in his spare time, was known for his calmness and his ability to defuse tense situations. Both had received instructions at the police academy about the dangers of using bodyweight to keep a suspect in a prone position for an extended period.
So why did neither man intervene when it became clear that Floyd was struggling to breathe? …
…
Chauvin was the most experienced officer on the scene, and the less experienced officers deferred to his judgment; Chauvin was insistent about keeping Floyd on the ground and indicated that he was taking steps to keep Floyd alive, creating, for the other officers, a degree of ambiguity about whether Chauvin’s actions were inappropriate. Each of the three officers could see that none of his colleagues was intervening to stop Chauvin, thus diffusing responsibility for any bad outcomes. Finally, differences of class, race and culture might have allowed the officers to view Floyd as “other,” rather than as someone they felt obligated to help.
…
… Video footage of Floyd’s death suggests Lane was uneasy about Chauvin’s actions. At one point, he suggested rolling Floyd onto his side. When Chauvin refused, Lane offered a vague expression of concern for Floyd’s health, but when Chauvin snapped, “[That’s] why we got the ambulance coming,” Lane backed down. A little later, Lane noted that Floyd appeared to be “passing out” and asked once more if Floyd should be rolled over — but again, he didn’t persist when Chauvin ignored him (Brooks 1-4).
If not for Darnella Frazier's quick thinking, Derek Chauvin might still be a Minneapolis police officer.
Instead, Chauvin is behind bars, convicted of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter after kneeling on George Floyd's neck for more than 9 minutes.
Now the teen who stood firm, capturing the longest and clearest bystander video of George Floyd's final moments, is overcome with emotion and praise after Chauvin's convictions Tuesday.
"I just cried so hard," Frazier posted on Facebook.
Darnella Frazier, third from right, recorded Chauvin's murder of Floyd next to her 9-year-old cousin.
…
Frazier kept filming despite the agony of watching Floyd's life slip away.
"I heard George Floyd saying, 'I can't breathe, please, get off of me' ... and crying for his mom," Frazier testified in court. "He was in pain. It seemed like he knew it was over for him."
…
Frazier, who is now 18, replied to the thousands of people who thanked her on Facebook.
"I can't reply to all of your beautiful comments as I wish to, but THANK YOU all of you," she wrote. "The support I had since day one carried me a long way so thank you again" (Yan 1-3).
When the seven women and five men on the jury in the Derek Chauvin murder trial gathered in a hotel conference room to start deliberating, there was one holdout, said one juror, Brandon Mitchell. After hearing about half the other jurors speak, the holdout was ready to convict on manslaughter.
So began five hours of deliberations over two days, said Mr. Mitchell, a 31-year-old high school basketball coach, also known as juror No. 52.
Mr. Mitchell is the first juror who sat through deliberations to speak out about what it was like to convict the former police officer of murder and manslaughter after sitting for three weeks hearing testimony and, he said, watching video of George Floyd die “over and over.”
The jury got the case on a Monday evening after a full day of closing arguments. Once they had selected a foreman, they took an initial vote, with 11 of the 12 jurors ready to convict Mr. Chauvin of manslaughter. The lone holdout told the group that the juror needed more time, Mr. Mitchell said, so the jurors had a chance to explain why they felt the charge fit.
By the time it was the holdout’s chance to speak, the juror had already come around, he said. After one hour of deliberation, the jurors were ready to call it a night. …
After spending the night alone in their rooms, they reassembled at 8 a.m. the next day.
Their first vote on third-degree murder was again 11 to 1, with the same holdout, Mr. Mitchell said. This time, they called up testimony and different pieces of evidence. Jurors gave their own interpretation of the legal issues required to approve the charge.
They also created their own timeline, relating various events to when Mr. Floyd stopped breathing.
It took 3½ hours to reach a consensus on third-degree murder, he said. By the time they discussed the second-degree charge, he said it only took another 20 to 30 minutes.
The jurors all had their own ideas about exactly when Mr. Chauvin’s actions broke the law, but Mr. Mitchell said, “we all agreed at some point that it was too much.”
Mr. Mitchell said some of the jurors—including him—would have liked to hear from Mr. Chauvin.
The jurors had left the courtroom by the time Mr. Chauvin was handcuffed and led away, but when Mr. Mitchell saw video of him being taken into custody, he said he felt compassion for him. “He’s a human too,” he said.
“I almost broke down from that,” he said. “We decided his life. That’s tough. That’s tough to deal with. Even though it’s the right decision, it’s still tough.”
Mr. Mitchell, who is Black, lives within a mile of the courthouse, where the trial was held.
He said he saw the protests that exploded last summer after Mr. Floyd’s death, but he doesn’t think he or the other jurors were swayed by fears their decision might trigger more unrest.
“The human aspect of it, in terms of watching somebody die every day, it outweighs that 10-fold,” he said.
…
… He said video—especially the body camera footage from the four officers involved in the arrest—was the most powerful evidence in the trial. He eventually had to stop watching as videos were played again and again. Video clips were played 166 times, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
It was much easier to follow the testimony of Dr. Martin Tobin, a pulmonologist and critical care specialist, who had jurors touch different parts of their necks as he gave them an anatomy lesson and explained how Mr. Chauvin prevented Mr. Floyd from breathing.
“He was the most excellent expert witness they could have had. He just solidified everything because he spoke so scientifically but elementary,” he said.
Mr. Mitchell found the defense’s medical expert, Dr. David Fowler, less convincing.
“When Fowler was coming to the stand, I thought he might be able to possibly prove something else,” he said. “But he didn’t really tell me anything that I thought was concrete.”
His contention that carbon monoxide poisoning may have killed Mr. Floyd didn’t fly with the jury, he said.
“I don’t think anybody paid that any mind,” he said.
He felt Mr. Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, promised to “paint this big picture” but failed to deliver. ...
Mr. Mitchell, who has two brothers and two sisters, said the hardest part was hearing Mr. Floyd’s brother testify.
“I just related to it too much,” he said. “Being big, you know, former athlete and all these things—it just, it really just hit home…. It just felt like something that easily could have been me or anybody else that I know.”
Mr. Mitchell said he decided to come forward because “staying anonymous wouldn’t help push for change.”
Mr. Mitchell said he was pulled over for no reason by Minneapolis police dozens of times in his early 20s, usually driving his mother’s aging Chrysler Sebring. He said he has always told his players to follow the checklist his mother gave him during these encounters.
Take your hat off; announce what you’re doing; be polite; do what you’re told.
But serving on the jury has made him see how wrong it is that a person should be so afraid that a police officer could do them harm that they needed to change their behavior.
“That’s also part of the reason why I’m speaking up now because that is a narrative that is horrible,” he said. “So somebody follows directions or not, they don’t deserve to die. … (Barrett and Winter 1-4).
A federal grand jury has indicted four former Minneapolis police officers in connection with the death of George Floyd, alleging the officers violated Floyd's constitutional rights, according to court documents filed in federal court in Minnesota.
…
According to the indictment, "the defendants saw George Floyd lying on the ground in clear need of medical care, and willfully failed to aid Floyd, thereby acting with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of harm to Floyd."
Chauvin also was charged in a separate indictment related to an incident in which he allegedly used unreasonable force on a Minneapolis 14-year-old in September 2017, the Justice Department said in a statement Friday.
The first count of that indictment says Chauvin "held the teenager by the throat and struck the teenager multiple times in the head with a flashlight," per the DOJ statement. A second count says he "held his knee on the neck and the upper back of the teenager even after the teenager was lying prone, handcuffed, and unresisting, also resulting in bodily injury."
…
The new federal charges are separate from the civil investigation into Minneapolis policing practices announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland last month, the Justice Department said Friday.
...
The statement from civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Antonio Romanucci, and L. Chris Stewart said, "the additional indictment of Derek Chauvin shows a pattern and practice of behavior."
Stewart told CNN's Pamela Brown during an interview Friday that they spoke with Garland after the indictments and shared how the family reacted.
"It was emotional," Stewart said. "They are ecstatic about it. We actually talked to Attorney General Garland today, and I have not heard such passion or sympathy and intention from an attorney general in a very long time. First thing he started with, he said that no one is above the law and that meant a lot."
Stewart added, "He just expressed his sympathy, and you could hear the intention in his voice and the determination to get the family justice. It meant a lot. We were very honored that he did that" (Andone 1-2).
Works cited:
Andone, Dakin. “Federal Grand Jury Indicts Four Former Minneapolis Police Officers in George Floyd's Death.” CNN, updated May 8, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/07/us/fed...
Barrett, Joe, and Winter, Deena. “Derek Chauvin Juror: ‘We All Agreed at Some Point That It Was Too Much’.” The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2021. Net. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-juror-...
Brooks, Rosa. “What about the Cops Who Watched George Floyd Die?” Politico, April 9, 2021. Net. https://www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Levenson, Eric. “How Minneapolis Police First Described the Murder of George Floyd, and What We Know Now.” CNN, April 21, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/min...
Yan, Holly. “A teen with 'a Cell Phone and Sheer Guts' Is Credited for Derek Chauvin's Murder Conviction.” CNN, updated April 21, 2021. Net. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/dar...
July 8, 2021
Bad Apples -- 05--25--2020, George Floyd, Part One
He was an outsize man who dreamed equally big, unswayed by the setbacks of his life.
Growing up in one of Houston’s poorest neighborhoods, he enjoyed a star turn as a basketball and football player, with three catches for 18 yards in a state championship game his junior year.
He was the first of his siblings to go to college, and he did so on an athletic scholarship. But he returned to Texas after a couple of years, and lost nearly a decade to arrests and incarcerations on mostly drug-related offenses. By the time he left his hometown for good a few years ago, moving 1,200 miles to Minneapolis for work, he was ready for a fresh start.
When he traveled to Houston in 2018 for his mother’s funeral — they died two years and one week apart — he told his family that Minneapolis had begun to feel like home. He had his mother’s name tattooed on his belly, a fact that was noted in his autopsy.
Floyd was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to George Perry and Larcenia Floyd. But he was really from a Houston neighborhood called the Bricks.
After his parents split up, his mother moved him and his siblings to Texas, where he grew up in the red brick world of Cuney Homes, a low-slung 564-unit public housing complex in Houston’s 3rd Ward that was named for Norris Wright Cuney, one of the most politically powerful black men in the state in the late 1800s.
Floyd’s mother — who was known as Cissy — was among the leaders of Cuney Homes and an active member of the resident council. She raised her own children and, at times, some of her grandchildren and some of her neighbors’ children, too.
As a child, Floyd was known in the Bricks as Perry, his middle name. As he grew, so, too, did his nicknames. He was Big Floyd, known as much for his big personality as his sense of humor.
Floyd’s height — he was more than 6 feet tall in middle school — created a kind of mystique.
“You can just imagine this tall kid as a freshman in high school walking the hallways. We were like, ‘Man, who is that guy?’ He was a jokester, always laughing and cracking jokes,” said Herbert Mouton, 45, who played on the Yates high school football team with Floyd. “We were talking the other day with classmates trying to think, ‘Had Floyd even ever had a fight before?’ And we couldn’t recall it.”
Mouton said that after the loss of a big game, Floyd would let the team sulk for a few minutes before telling a joke to lighten the mood. “He never wanted us to feel bad for too long,” he said (Fernandez and Burch 2-3).
"Anytime I take somebody who's not from there, people actually are like 'man, oh my God, I've never seen poverty like this.”
"It looks like a bomb went off, what happened?'" Ronnie Lillard, a friend from the neighbourhood tells the BBC.
"People are still living in shot-gun shacks that were erected in the 1920s. The poverty is thorough... and being from that area, it's hard to escape," says Mr Lillard … (George 1).
Floyd saw sports as the path out of the Bricks. And so he leaned into his size and athletic prowess in a sports-obsessed state. As a tight end, Floyd helped power his football team to the state championship game in 1992.
…
After graduating from high school, Floyd left Texas on a basketball scholarship to South Florida Community College (now South Florida State College).
“I was looking for a power forward, and he fit the bill. He was athletic, and I liked the way he handled the ball,” said George Walker, who recruited Floyd. “He was a starter and scored 12 to 14 points and seven to eight rebounds.”
Floyd transferred two years later, in 1995, to Texas A&M University’s Kingsville campus, but he did not stay long. He returned home to Houston — and to the 3rd Ward — without a degree.
Known locally as the Tré, the 3rd Ward, south of downtown, is among the city’s historically black neighborhoods, and it has been featured in the music of one of the most famous people to grow up there, Beyoncé.
At times, life in the Bricks was unforgiving. Poverty, drugs, gangs and violence scarred many 3rd Ward families. Several of Floyd’s classmates did not live past their 20s.
Soon after returning, Floyd started rapping. He appeared as Big Floyd on mixtapes created by DJ Screw, a fixture in Houston’s hip-hop scene in the 1990s.
His voice deep, his rhymes purposefully delivered at a slow-motion clip, Floyd rapped about “choppin’ blades” — driving cars with oversize rims — and his 3rd Ward pride.
According to court records in Harris County … authorities arrested him on nine separate occasions between 1997 and 2007 … On multiple occasions, police would make sweeps through the [Cuney Homes] complex and end up detaining a large number of men, including Floyd, a neighborhood friend named Tiffany Cofield told the AP. Additionally, Texas has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, per the Prison Policy Initiative, and several studies show authorities are way more likely to target Black Texans for arrests than white residents (Fernandez and Burch 4).
[in 2007, Floyd was arrested for his most serious crime: aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon]
Two adults, Aracely Henriquez and Angel Negrete, and a toddler were in a home when they heard a knock at the front door. When Henriquez looked out the window, she saw a man “dressed in a blue uniform” who said “he was with the water department.” But when she opened the door, she realized the man was telling a lie and she tried shutting him out. …
However, this male held the door open and prevented her from doing so. At this time, a black Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the Complainants’ residence and five other black males exited this vehicle and proceeded to the front door. The largest of these suspects [Floyd] forced his way into the residence, placed a pistol against the complainant’s abdomen, and forced her into the living room area of the residence. This large suspect then proceeded to search the residence while another armed suspect guarded the complainant, who was struck in the head and side areas by this second armed suspect with his pistol after she screamed for help. As the suspects looked through the residence, they demanded to know where the drugs and money were and Complaint Henriquez advised them that there were no such things in the residence. The suspects then took some jewelry along with the complainant’s cell phone before they fled the scene in the black Ford Explorer (Lee 2-3).
Four years later, Floyd pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and spent four years in prison. He was released in 2013 and returned home again — this time to begin the long, hard work of trying to turn his life around, using his missteps as a lesson for others.
Stephen Jackson, a retired professional basketball player from Port Arthur, Texas, met Floyd a year or two before Jackson joined the NBA.
They had sports in common, Jackson said, but they also looked alike — enough to call each other “twin” as a term of endearment.
“I tell people all the time, the only difference between me and George Floyd, the only difference between me and my twin, the only difference between me and Georgie, is the fact that I had more opportunities,” he said, later adding, “If George would have had more opportunities, he might have been a pro athlete in two sports” ((Fernandez and Burch 5).
“He came home with his head on right,” said friend Travis Cains.
At a Christian rap concert in the Third Ward, Floyd met Lillard and pastor Patrick “PT” Ngwolo, whose ministry was looking for ways to reach residents in Cuney Homes. Floyd, who seemed to know everyone in the project, volunteered to be their guide.
…
On the streets of Cuney, Floyd was increasingly embraced as an O.G. -- literally “original gangster,” but bestowed as a title of respect for a mentor who’d learned from life experience.
In Tiffany Cofield’s classroom at a neighborhood charter school, some of her male students -- many of whom had already had brushes with the law -- told her to talk to “Big Floyd” if she wanted to understand.
Floyd would listen patiently as she voiced her frustrations with students’ bad behavior, she said. And he would try to explain the life of a young man in the projects.
After school, Floyd often met up with her students outside a corner store.
“How’s school going?” he’d ask. “Are you being respectful? How’s your mom? How’s your grandma” (Henao, Merchant, Lozano, and Geller 3-4).
… Floyd spent a lot of time at Resurrection Houston, a church that holds many of its services on the basketball court in the middle of Cuney Homes. He would set up chairs and drag out to the center of the court the service’s main attraction — the baptism tub.
“We’d baptize people on the court and we’ve got this big old horse trough. And he’d drag that thing by himself onto that court,” said Patrick Ngwolo, a lawyer and pastor of Resurrection Houston, who described Floyd as a father figure for younger community residents.
Eventually, Floyd became involved in a Christian program with a history of taking men from the 3rd Ward to Minnesota and providing them with drug rehabilitation and job placement services.
“When you say, ‘I’m going to Minnesota,’ everybody knows you’re going to this church-work program out of Minnesota,” Ngwolo said, “and you’re getting out of this environment.”
His move would be a fresh start, Ngwolo said, his story one of redemption (Fernandez and Burch 6).
As the father of five children from several relationships, he had bills to pay. And despite his stature in Cuney, everyday life could be trying. More than once, Floyd ended up in handcuffs when police came through the projects and detained a large number of men, Cofield said.
“He would show by example: ‘Yes, officer. No, officer.’ Very respectful. Very calm tone,” she said.
A friend of Floyd’s had already moved to the Twin Cities as part of a church discipleship program that offered men a route to self-sufficiency by changing their environment and helping them find jobs.
“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning,” said Christopher Harris, who preceded Floyd to Minneapolis. Friends provided Floyd with money and clothing to ease the transition.
In Minnesota, Floyd lived in a red clapboard duplex with two roommates on the eastern edge of St. Louis Park, a gentrifying Minneapolis suburb.
Beginning sometime in 2017, he worked as a security guard at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light Center, a downtown homeless shelter and transitional housing facility. The staff got to know Floyd as someone with a steady temperament, whose instinct to protect employees included walking them to their cars.
“It takes a special person to work in the shelter environment,” said Brian Molohon, executive director of development at the Salvation Army Northern Division. “Every day you are bombarded with heartache and brokenness”
...
“He would regularly walk a couple of female co-workers out … at night and make sure they got to their cars safely and securely,” said Brian Molohon, director of development for the Army’s Minnesota office. “Just a big strong guy, but with a very tender side.”
...
Even as Floyd settled into his position, he looked for other jobs. While working at the Salvation Army, he answered a job ad for a bouncer at Conga Latin Bistro, a restaurant and dance club.
...
Jovanni Thunstrom, the owner, said Floyd quickly became part of the work family. He came in early and left late. And though he tried, he never quite mastered salsa dancing
“He would dance badly to make people laugh,” said … Thunstrom. “I tried to teach him how to dance because he loved Latin music, but I couldn’t because he was too tall for me.”
…
Right away I liked his attitude,” said Thunstrom, .... “He would shake your hand with both hands. He would bend down to greet you.”
Floyd kept a Bible by his bed. Often, he read it aloud. And despite his height, Floyd would fold himself in the hallway to frequently pray with Theresa Scott, one of his roommates.
“He had this real cool way of talking. His voice reminded me of Ray Charles. He’d talk fast and he was so soft-spoken,” said Alvin Manago, 55, who met Floyd at a 2016 softball game. They bonded instantly and became roommates.
“He had this low-pitched bass. You had to get used to his accent to understand him. He’d say, ‘Right-on, right-on, right-on’.”
…
Floyd kept his connection to Houston, regularly returning to Cuney..
When Houston hosted the Super Bowl in 2017, Floyd was back in town, hosting a party at the church with music and free AIDS testing. He came back again for his mother’s funeral the next year. … Floyd was planning another trip for this summer.
By then, Floyd was out of work. Early this spring, Thunstrom cut Floyd’s job when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the club to close (Henao, Merchant, Lozano, and Geller 6-10).
Floyd spent the final weeks of his life recovering from the coronavirus, which he learned he had in early April. After he was better, he started spending more time with his girlfriend, and he had not seen his roommates in a few weeks ….
Like millions of people, his roommates in the city that was to be his fresh start watched the video that captured Floyd taking his last breaths.
They heard him call out for his late mother: “Mama! Mama!”
On Tuesday morning, 15 days after that anguished cry, Floyd will be laid to rest beside her (Fernandez and Burch 4-9).
They met one evening four summers ago, and she was instantly drawn to his “great, deep, southern voice.” She gave him her phone number that night, and they became close, exploring the city’s sculpture garden and its vibrant restaurant scene. Soon she was simply calling him “Floyd,” just like his friends did.
“Floyd was new to the city, so everything was kind of new to him,” Ms. Ross said. “He made it seem like I was new to my own city.”
For Courteney Ross, a lifelong resident of Minneapolis, George Floyd made her hometown seem new again, undiscovered.
On the fourth day of testimony in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former officer charged in Mr. Floyd’s death, the prosecution presented a fuller picture of George Floyd the person. In testimony, Ms. Ross, who had been dating Mr. Floyd for almost three years, described how he was a caring partner, a devoted father and passionate about exercise — a guy who loved to ride his bike and play ball with the neighborhood children.
She talked about all these things, as well as the ups and downs of their relationship, his love for his mother and the devastation he felt when she died a few years ago.
And like so many Americans, the couple had a shared struggle: opioid addiction.
“Our story, it’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids,” she said. “We both struggled from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back.”
…
“Addiction in my opinion is a lifelong struggle,” Ms. Ross said, in sometimes halting, tearful testimony. “It’s something we dealt with every day. It’s not something that just comes and goes.”
…
Ms. Ross told … that they relapsed together last spring, and that Mr. Floyd was hospitalized for several days in March after she found him doubled over in pain from an overdose. Later that month, she thought they had both managed to quit again, but in the weeks before he died in May, a change in Mr. Floyd’s behavior made her think he had again begun using.
“We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times,” she said. “When you know someone who suffers from any type of addiction, you can start to kind of see changes when they’re using again.”
…
In the earlier testimony, Ms. Ross also said that Mr. Floyd referred to her and his own mother, who died in 2018, by the same nickname: “Mama.” Mr. Floyd had called out for “Mama” as Mr. Chauvin knelt on his neck before his death.
Mr. Floyd had moved to Minneapolis from Houston looking for a fresh start, but after his mother died, Ms. Ross said, he changed. “He seemed like a shell of himself,” she said. “Like he was broken. He seemed so sad. He didn’t have the same kind of bounce that he had.”
…
She first met him at a Salvation Army homeless shelter where Mr. Floyd worked as a security guard. One night, he saw her waiting in the lobby to talk with the father of her two children about the birthday of one of their sons. Mr. Floyd sensed that she was upset.
“He was like, ‘Sis, you OK, sis?’” Ms. Ross recounted. He told her she was not OK.
“He said, ‘Can I pray with you?’”
“This kind person just to come up to me, and say can I pray with you, when I felt alone in this lobby,” she said. “It was so sweet at the time. I had lost faith in God” (Arango, Bogel-Burroughs, and Bosman 1-4).
Works cited:
Arango, Tim, Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas, and Bosman, Julie. “George Floyd’s Girlfriend Says Opioid Addiction Was a Struggle They Shared.” The New York Times, updated April 9, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/us...
Fernandez, Manny, and Burch, Audra D. S. “George Floyd, from ‘I Want To Touch the World’ to ‘I Can’t Breathe’.” Seattle Times, upgraded June 10, 2020. Net. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...
“George Floyd, the Man Whose Death Sparked US Unrest.” BBC News, May 31, 2020. Net. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-can...
Henao, Luis Andres, Merchant, Nomaan, Lozano, Juan, and Geller, Adam. “A Long Look at the Complicated Life of George Floyd.” Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2020. Net. https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation...
Lee, Jessica. “Background Check: Investigating George Floyd’s Criminal Record.” Snopes, February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/06/1...
Growing up in one of Houston’s poorest neighborhoods, he enjoyed a star turn as a basketball and football player, with three catches for 18 yards in a state championship game his junior year.
He was the first of his siblings to go to college, and he did so on an athletic scholarship. But he returned to Texas after a couple of years, and lost nearly a decade to arrests and incarcerations on mostly drug-related offenses. By the time he left his hometown for good a few years ago, moving 1,200 miles to Minneapolis for work, he was ready for a fresh start.
When he traveled to Houston in 2018 for his mother’s funeral — they died two years and one week apart — he told his family that Minneapolis had begun to feel like home. He had his mother’s name tattooed on his belly, a fact that was noted in his autopsy.
Floyd was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to George Perry and Larcenia Floyd. But he was really from a Houston neighborhood called the Bricks.
After his parents split up, his mother moved him and his siblings to Texas, where he grew up in the red brick world of Cuney Homes, a low-slung 564-unit public housing complex in Houston’s 3rd Ward that was named for Norris Wright Cuney, one of the most politically powerful black men in the state in the late 1800s.
Floyd’s mother — who was known as Cissy — was among the leaders of Cuney Homes and an active member of the resident council. She raised her own children and, at times, some of her grandchildren and some of her neighbors’ children, too.
As a child, Floyd was known in the Bricks as Perry, his middle name. As he grew, so, too, did his nicknames. He was Big Floyd, known as much for his big personality as his sense of humor.
Floyd’s height — he was more than 6 feet tall in middle school — created a kind of mystique.
“You can just imagine this tall kid as a freshman in high school walking the hallways. We were like, ‘Man, who is that guy?’ He was a jokester, always laughing and cracking jokes,” said Herbert Mouton, 45, who played on the Yates high school football team with Floyd. “We were talking the other day with classmates trying to think, ‘Had Floyd even ever had a fight before?’ And we couldn’t recall it.”
Mouton said that after the loss of a big game, Floyd would let the team sulk for a few minutes before telling a joke to lighten the mood. “He never wanted us to feel bad for too long,” he said (Fernandez and Burch 2-3).
"Anytime I take somebody who's not from there, people actually are like 'man, oh my God, I've never seen poverty like this.”
"It looks like a bomb went off, what happened?'" Ronnie Lillard, a friend from the neighbourhood tells the BBC.
"People are still living in shot-gun shacks that were erected in the 1920s. The poverty is thorough... and being from that area, it's hard to escape," says Mr Lillard … (George 1).
Floyd saw sports as the path out of the Bricks. And so he leaned into his size and athletic prowess in a sports-obsessed state. As a tight end, Floyd helped power his football team to the state championship game in 1992.
…
After graduating from high school, Floyd left Texas on a basketball scholarship to South Florida Community College (now South Florida State College).
“I was looking for a power forward, and he fit the bill. He was athletic, and I liked the way he handled the ball,” said George Walker, who recruited Floyd. “He was a starter and scored 12 to 14 points and seven to eight rebounds.”
Floyd transferred two years later, in 1995, to Texas A&M University’s Kingsville campus, but he did not stay long. He returned home to Houston — and to the 3rd Ward — without a degree.
Known locally as the Tré, the 3rd Ward, south of downtown, is among the city’s historically black neighborhoods, and it has been featured in the music of one of the most famous people to grow up there, Beyoncé.
At times, life in the Bricks was unforgiving. Poverty, drugs, gangs and violence scarred many 3rd Ward families. Several of Floyd’s classmates did not live past their 20s.
Soon after returning, Floyd started rapping. He appeared as Big Floyd on mixtapes created by DJ Screw, a fixture in Houston’s hip-hop scene in the 1990s.
His voice deep, his rhymes purposefully delivered at a slow-motion clip, Floyd rapped about “choppin’ blades” — driving cars with oversize rims — and his 3rd Ward pride.
According to court records in Harris County … authorities arrested him on nine separate occasions between 1997 and 2007 … On multiple occasions, police would make sweeps through the [Cuney Homes] complex and end up detaining a large number of men, including Floyd, a neighborhood friend named Tiffany Cofield told the AP. Additionally, Texas has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, per the Prison Policy Initiative, and several studies show authorities are way more likely to target Black Texans for arrests than white residents (Fernandez and Burch 4).
[in 2007, Floyd was arrested for his most serious crime: aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon]
Two adults, Aracely Henriquez and Angel Negrete, and a toddler were in a home when they heard a knock at the front door. When Henriquez looked out the window, she saw a man “dressed in a blue uniform” who said “he was with the water department.” But when she opened the door, she realized the man was telling a lie and she tried shutting him out. …
However, this male held the door open and prevented her from doing so. At this time, a black Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the Complainants’ residence and five other black males exited this vehicle and proceeded to the front door. The largest of these suspects [Floyd] forced his way into the residence, placed a pistol against the complainant’s abdomen, and forced her into the living room area of the residence. This large suspect then proceeded to search the residence while another armed suspect guarded the complainant, who was struck in the head and side areas by this second armed suspect with his pistol after she screamed for help. As the suspects looked through the residence, they demanded to know where the drugs and money were and Complaint Henriquez advised them that there were no such things in the residence. The suspects then took some jewelry along with the complainant’s cell phone before they fled the scene in the black Ford Explorer (Lee 2-3).
Four years later, Floyd pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and spent four years in prison. He was released in 2013 and returned home again — this time to begin the long, hard work of trying to turn his life around, using his missteps as a lesson for others.
Stephen Jackson, a retired professional basketball player from Port Arthur, Texas, met Floyd a year or two before Jackson joined the NBA.
They had sports in common, Jackson said, but they also looked alike — enough to call each other “twin” as a term of endearment.
“I tell people all the time, the only difference between me and George Floyd, the only difference between me and my twin, the only difference between me and Georgie, is the fact that I had more opportunities,” he said, later adding, “If George would have had more opportunities, he might have been a pro athlete in two sports” ((Fernandez and Burch 5).
“He came home with his head on right,” said friend Travis Cains.
At a Christian rap concert in the Third Ward, Floyd met Lillard and pastor Patrick “PT” Ngwolo, whose ministry was looking for ways to reach residents in Cuney Homes. Floyd, who seemed to know everyone in the project, volunteered to be their guide.
…
On the streets of Cuney, Floyd was increasingly embraced as an O.G. -- literally “original gangster,” but bestowed as a title of respect for a mentor who’d learned from life experience.
In Tiffany Cofield’s classroom at a neighborhood charter school, some of her male students -- many of whom had already had brushes with the law -- told her to talk to “Big Floyd” if she wanted to understand.
Floyd would listen patiently as she voiced her frustrations with students’ bad behavior, she said. And he would try to explain the life of a young man in the projects.
After school, Floyd often met up with her students outside a corner store.
“How’s school going?” he’d ask. “Are you being respectful? How’s your mom? How’s your grandma” (Henao, Merchant, Lozano, and Geller 3-4).
… Floyd spent a lot of time at Resurrection Houston, a church that holds many of its services on the basketball court in the middle of Cuney Homes. He would set up chairs and drag out to the center of the court the service’s main attraction — the baptism tub.
“We’d baptize people on the court and we’ve got this big old horse trough. And he’d drag that thing by himself onto that court,” said Patrick Ngwolo, a lawyer and pastor of Resurrection Houston, who described Floyd as a father figure for younger community residents.
Eventually, Floyd became involved in a Christian program with a history of taking men from the 3rd Ward to Minnesota and providing them with drug rehabilitation and job placement services.
“When you say, ‘I’m going to Minnesota,’ everybody knows you’re going to this church-work program out of Minnesota,” Ngwolo said, “and you’re getting out of this environment.”
His move would be a fresh start, Ngwolo said, his story one of redemption (Fernandez and Burch 6).
As the father of five children from several relationships, he had bills to pay. And despite his stature in Cuney, everyday life could be trying. More than once, Floyd ended up in handcuffs when police came through the projects and detained a large number of men, Cofield said.
“He would show by example: ‘Yes, officer. No, officer.’ Very respectful. Very calm tone,” she said.
A friend of Floyd’s had already moved to the Twin Cities as part of a church discipleship program that offered men a route to self-sufficiency by changing their environment and helping them find jobs.
“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning,” said Christopher Harris, who preceded Floyd to Minneapolis. Friends provided Floyd with money and clothing to ease the transition.
In Minnesota, Floyd lived in a red clapboard duplex with two roommates on the eastern edge of St. Louis Park, a gentrifying Minneapolis suburb.
Beginning sometime in 2017, he worked as a security guard at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light Center, a downtown homeless shelter and transitional housing facility. The staff got to know Floyd as someone with a steady temperament, whose instinct to protect employees included walking them to their cars.
“It takes a special person to work in the shelter environment,” said Brian Molohon, executive director of development at the Salvation Army Northern Division. “Every day you are bombarded with heartache and brokenness”
...
“He would regularly walk a couple of female co-workers out … at night and make sure they got to their cars safely and securely,” said Brian Molohon, director of development for the Army’s Minnesota office. “Just a big strong guy, but with a very tender side.”
...
Even as Floyd settled into his position, he looked for other jobs. While working at the Salvation Army, he answered a job ad for a bouncer at Conga Latin Bistro, a restaurant and dance club.
...
Jovanni Thunstrom, the owner, said Floyd quickly became part of the work family. He came in early and left late. And though he tried, he never quite mastered salsa dancing
“He would dance badly to make people laugh,” said … Thunstrom. “I tried to teach him how to dance because he loved Latin music, but I couldn’t because he was too tall for me.”
…
Right away I liked his attitude,” said Thunstrom, .... “He would shake your hand with both hands. He would bend down to greet you.”
Floyd kept a Bible by his bed. Often, he read it aloud. And despite his height, Floyd would fold himself in the hallway to frequently pray with Theresa Scott, one of his roommates.
“He had this real cool way of talking. His voice reminded me of Ray Charles. He’d talk fast and he was so soft-spoken,” said Alvin Manago, 55, who met Floyd at a 2016 softball game. They bonded instantly and became roommates.
“He had this low-pitched bass. You had to get used to his accent to understand him. He’d say, ‘Right-on, right-on, right-on’.”
…
Floyd kept his connection to Houston, regularly returning to Cuney..
When Houston hosted the Super Bowl in 2017, Floyd was back in town, hosting a party at the church with music and free AIDS testing. He came back again for his mother’s funeral the next year. … Floyd was planning another trip for this summer.
By then, Floyd was out of work. Early this spring, Thunstrom cut Floyd’s job when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the club to close (Henao, Merchant, Lozano, and Geller 6-10).
Floyd spent the final weeks of his life recovering from the coronavirus, which he learned he had in early April. After he was better, he started spending more time with his girlfriend, and he had not seen his roommates in a few weeks ….
Like millions of people, his roommates in the city that was to be his fresh start watched the video that captured Floyd taking his last breaths.
They heard him call out for his late mother: “Mama! Mama!”
On Tuesday morning, 15 days after that anguished cry, Floyd will be laid to rest beside her (Fernandez and Burch 4-9).
They met one evening four summers ago, and she was instantly drawn to his “great, deep, southern voice.” She gave him her phone number that night, and they became close, exploring the city’s sculpture garden and its vibrant restaurant scene. Soon she was simply calling him “Floyd,” just like his friends did.
“Floyd was new to the city, so everything was kind of new to him,” Ms. Ross said. “He made it seem like I was new to my own city.”
For Courteney Ross, a lifelong resident of Minneapolis, George Floyd made her hometown seem new again, undiscovered.
On the fourth day of testimony in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former officer charged in Mr. Floyd’s death, the prosecution presented a fuller picture of George Floyd the person. In testimony, Ms. Ross, who had been dating Mr. Floyd for almost three years, described how he was a caring partner, a devoted father and passionate about exercise — a guy who loved to ride his bike and play ball with the neighborhood children.
She talked about all these things, as well as the ups and downs of their relationship, his love for his mother and the devastation he felt when she died a few years ago.
And like so many Americans, the couple had a shared struggle: opioid addiction.
“Our story, it’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids,” she said. “We both struggled from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back.”
…
“Addiction in my opinion is a lifelong struggle,” Ms. Ross said, in sometimes halting, tearful testimony. “It’s something we dealt with every day. It’s not something that just comes and goes.”
…
Ms. Ross told … that they relapsed together last spring, and that Mr. Floyd was hospitalized for several days in March after she found him doubled over in pain from an overdose. Later that month, she thought they had both managed to quit again, but in the weeks before he died in May, a change in Mr. Floyd’s behavior made her think he had again begun using.
“We got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times,” she said. “When you know someone who suffers from any type of addiction, you can start to kind of see changes when they’re using again.”
…
In the earlier testimony, Ms. Ross also said that Mr. Floyd referred to her and his own mother, who died in 2018, by the same nickname: “Mama.” Mr. Floyd had called out for “Mama” as Mr. Chauvin knelt on his neck before his death.
Mr. Floyd had moved to Minneapolis from Houston looking for a fresh start, but after his mother died, Ms. Ross said, he changed. “He seemed like a shell of himself,” she said. “Like he was broken. He seemed so sad. He didn’t have the same kind of bounce that he had.”
…
She first met him at a Salvation Army homeless shelter where Mr. Floyd worked as a security guard. One night, he saw her waiting in the lobby to talk with the father of her two children about the birthday of one of their sons. Mr. Floyd sensed that she was upset.
“He was like, ‘Sis, you OK, sis?’” Ms. Ross recounted. He told her she was not OK.
“He said, ‘Can I pray with you?’”
“This kind person just to come up to me, and say can I pray with you, when I felt alone in this lobby,” she said. “It was so sweet at the time. I had lost faith in God” (Arango, Bogel-Burroughs, and Bosman 1-4).
Works cited:
Arango, Tim, Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas, and Bosman, Julie. “George Floyd’s Girlfriend Says Opioid Addiction Was a Struggle They Shared.” The New York Times, updated April 9, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/us...
Fernandez, Manny, and Burch, Audra D. S. “George Floyd, from ‘I Want To Touch the World’ to ‘I Can’t Breathe’.” Seattle Times, upgraded June 10, 2020. Net. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...
“George Floyd, the Man Whose Death Sparked US Unrest.” BBC News, May 31, 2020. Net. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-can...
Henao, Luis Andres, Merchant, Nomaan, Lozano, Juan, and Geller, Adam. “A Long Look at the Complicated Life of George Floyd.” Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2020. Net. https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation...
Lee, Jessica. “Background Check: Investigating George Floyd’s Criminal Record.” Snopes, February 24, 2021. Net. https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/06/1...
